Continuity of Lower- And Higher-Order Thinking Skills in Primary Education: The Example of Mother Tongue and Reading Literacy Lessons

Abstract

Primary education is the most important stage in building the foundational basis of a learner’s literacy. It is precisely during this period that a child develops skills related to reading, understanding a text, expressing thoughts coherently, and applying rules and concepts in practice. However, the demands of modern education require that the teaching process in primary grades should not be limited only to “remembering knowledge” or “retelling” it. On the contrary, lessons should gradually make the learner’s thinking activity more complex; that is, together with lower-order thinking skills, they should consistently foster higher-order thinking skills as well. This article highlights the scientific and methodological foundations for integrating lower-order thinking skills as a “foundation” and higher-order thinking skills as an “intellectual and creative peak,” as well as the mechanisms for naturally moving toward the operations of analysis, evaluation, and creation through chains of questions and tasks in mother tongue and reading literacy lessons.