Help with Critical Thinking Skills

Comprehension, organization, vocabulary, retention and information processing are important basic thinking skills and are required of almost anyone. The Critical Thinking Skills (Comprehension) program is ideal for students that may be proficient in logical reasoning but have not mastered reasoning skills to the point where applying them is automatic. These students need extra help with learning new concepts, understanding written instructions, reading comprehension, and the mechanics of writing. Critical Thinking Skills starts with oral language and teaches deductions, inductions, analogies, vocabulary and inferences. The second level expands into basic evidence, contradictions, classifications, body systems, economic rules and more vocabulary. Writing skills such as paragraph-writing and story-writing, and following both written and oral directions, are also added. The more advanced level emphasizes life skills, reading for information, analyzing arguments, and higher-order reasoning.

Thinking Skills A

Typical Student: 3rd grade through adult learners who do not understand the concepts of what is being taught in classrooms. These learners cannot repeat sentences they hear. Therefore, they have trouble answering questions about information that is presented. Retention is also difficult.
Students will learn:

Analogies
And/Or
Basic Evidence
Classification
Deductions
Vocabulary
Description
Opposites/Same
Statement Inference
True-False
Information exercises (i.e., months, seasons, holidays, poems, animals)

Students will leave Thinking Skills A being able to recite poems, give definitions for about 50 words, follow instructions, use evidence to describe why something happened, classify things, and answer questions based on statement inference. Students will have a foundation on which to build future learning.

Thinking Skills B1 and B2

Typical Student: 4th grade through adult learners who are poor comprehenders. Students lack some common basic information. They tend to have poor vocabulary and writing skills; they tend to have trouble with difficult statement-repetition activities, deductions that involve "maybe", relating conclusions to evidence, identifying contradictions, and following written directions.
Students will learn:

To formulate a deduction (reasoning skill)
Basic classes (information skill)
To identify the precise meaning of a word (vocabulary skill)
To understand the structure of complicated sentences (sentence skill)
How to answer a question or follow a direction (basic comprehension skill)
To write answers correctly (writing skill)

Students will leave Thinking Skills B1 and B2 having learned many of the skills associated with reading carefully, operating on information that they read, and following specific instructions.
Students will also:

Understand that systems are constructed of parts that have names and are governed by rules (i.e., digestive system, muscular system)
Understand that when words function in the same way, they are the same part of speech
Understand the basic procedures for drawing conclusions from facts.
Follow very specific instructions that maybe found in work applications and other forms.
Readily learn how to identify fallacies in arguments, how to read critically, and how to solve possible inconsistencies encountered in reading

Thinking Skills C

Typical Student: 5th grade through adult learners who have already learned many comprehension skills, but have not mastered reasoning skills to the point where applying them is automatic. These students have trouble learning a new concept or understanding directions from written instructions. They are deficient in advanced vocabulary, the mechanics of writing and editing, and lack skills in extracting information from sources (i.e., written passages or graphs). Most of all, these students have trouble working independently.
Students will learn:

Information organization (main idea, outlining, specific-general, and visual-spatial organization)
Information operation (deductions, basic evidence, argument rules, "ought" statements, and contradictions)
How to use sources of information (basic comprehension passages, words or deductions, maps, pictures and graphs, and supporting evidence)
How to use information for directions (writing directions, filling out forms, and identifying contradictory directions)
How to communicate information (definitions, combining sentences, editing, and obtaining meaning from context)

Students will leave Thinking Skills C proficient at analyzing arguments, inferring the meaning of a word form its context and understanding the purpose of "expert testimony." They will understand the basic procedures for editing and how to correct some of the more common writing errors. They have a solid frame-work on which to become experienced, proficient, and completely knowledgeable performers.