Reading Stories to Kids: Developing Critical Thinking Skills

Recently I came across a post by a mother concerned for her four year old girl. The concern was in relation to reading the kind of story books involving prince and princess and the idea that the prince is the rescuer … “he recues her” as she would say. She rightly indicates ‘a boy recuing a girl’ might not be fit in today’s world. I will try and explain as how such cases can be handled in a manner that would help both the child and the mother. These strategies can be used with primary through to high school kids.

There are many books, including our own text books where gender role is explicitly divided. Man would be ploughing the field while woman would be cooking food. Man would be driving a tractor while woman would carry water from the well. Men praying in a mosque while women in the kitchen with deserts for Eid celebrations. There are many such examples and the question is, can we avoid them? Or to be more specific, should we avoid them? Can we control what our kids read? And in fact is there a limitation on knowledge accumulation?

 Though I do not deny the fact that many times we pick and choose what our kids should learn. Almost all information is filtered; sometimes through the system such as school curriculum, through peer group, parents and/or personal interests. Hence there is an opportunity to avoid such book but it is not entirely possible. We cannot always control what our kids read and know about. This is because it is not only us in the child’s life. They interact with many people around them. Their teachers, peers and friends are powerful influence. They can drive the child’s knowledge acquisition in many different ways. I would rather use it as an opportunity to open up the good as well as the bad happening in this world. It is a great start to develop critical thinking in kids. Here are some strategies to help develop critical thinking in the little minds through story books.

After reading certain parts of the story, parents could pause and discuss. Questions like, what is happening? Can you tell it to me again? Encourage the child to tell the story in his/her own words. This will help build their communication skills and confidence. They will be able to use sentences and vocabulary to re-tell the story. And above all, they will be able to interpret any text and relate it to their previous knowledge. It will strengthen their neural connections and develop new connections. If you are a bi/multi lingual family, you can ask your child to re-tell the story in another language. 

At some other points such as ‘the prince rescues the princess’, the parents should stop again and discuss. Ask questions like, what is happening? Why is it happening? Can it happen in any other way? Let’s change the roles? How about the princesses helping the prince? Be open to any kind of response from the kid. If you find the kid thinking that there is no any other way because the book says it, then is a great time to discuss this further. The idea is to make the kids feel that books are written by people like us and that the information is not absolute.

Ask questions such as ‘do you think whatever the book says is the only right thing? Who has written this book? (check the name of the author together). Now talk to the kid that he/she is a person like anyone of us. Here you are giving the idea that the book is written by a person who is like any other person. He/she has his/her biases, so it is not important that whatever he write is entirely true. We can make changes to it or make our own story.

To take things further, parents can discuss the book as a whole over dinner or while relaxing. Discussion questions could be: what was interesting in the book? What was not-so-interesting? What you did not like? Why? Also share your likes and dislikes of the book (supposing that you have read it together). Can we change anything? If we write our own little book, how would we write it? By doing these discussions with the kids, you as parents are helping in building the critical thinking skills of the child. At the same time you are inculcating your own point of view about the world or the gender issues. We cannot hide these ‘ugly realities’ of our world. We should be open about it.

Secondly, it is a great way to teach the child that everything coming in a book form is not the only correct information. There are always things that are not in the book but makes you wonder about it. It develops more questions in the child’s mind. And more question means more curiosity. More curiosity means a thrust for more reading. So try to inculcate a mind with lots of questions. They should not see it as an end in itself. Confusion leads to curiosity and with support, kids can explore more.

Above all, reading stories with little kids is not only bounded to the story but we can go beyond. Communication skills, critical thinking skills, curiosity and the feeling that they can also do similar things are just a few benefits your child can get.  

* Picture used with permission