Fostering Critical Thinking Skills in Students with Learning Disabilities: An Instructional Program

Abstract

An instructional unit was developed to enhance the critical thinking skills of middle school and high school students with learning disabilities by teaching them the principles of scientific reasoning. Student-teacher dialogues were used to engage the students in an active process of critical inquiry. Students analyzed everyday information presented in brief magazine articles and advertisements by applying the principles of the scientific method. The students made statistically significant improvements in their ability to (a) identify the principal claim made in an article or advertisement, (b) graph the relevant data, and (c) evaluate the claims made in the article and explain their support or rejection of the claims based on data. After the instructional unit, the overall performance of the special education students exceeded that of a control group composed of regular education students who had not received instruction in critical thinking.

Enhancing Critical Thinking Skills among Students with Learning Difficulties

“…It is worth mentioning, teaching thinking skills have been started in public education towards gifted students particularly. At the same time, less attention was paid especially towards students with learning difficulties, and students with special needs in general, as mentioned early of this article (Leshowitz et al, 1993;Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1993). In this regard, Larsen (2002) indicated that new challenge to curriculum development and educational programmes aims at providing teaching thinking for all individuals, not only for the elite.…”

“…Nevertheless, only a few of these studies have addressed teaching of thinking to students with LDs because of the prevalent belief in the field of special education that students with LDs have a more urgent need to master basic skills, such as learning to read and write. Thus, teaching thinking skills is not considered a priority in the field of special education (LaFrance, 1995;Leshowitz, Jenkens, Heaton, & Bough, 1993;Rottman & Cross, 1990). The challenge that faces the field of special education today requires insertion of higher-order thinking skills within the curriculum for students with special needs, a challenge that has been met with an outcry from special education teachers because they believe their students are still struggling to pass the regular curriculum (Carnine, 1991).…”

“…These programmes currently concentrate on training students with LDs on basic academic skills, but recent changes have shifted the focus on teaching higher thinking skills as specialists in the field of special education have begun to search for possibilities of training several special education categories on different kinds of thinking as shown by the current crop of studies on the area (Carnine, 1991;Mastropieri et al, 1996). Indeed, although educational thinking programmes have increasingly focused on gifted and ordinary students, some attention has also been given to teaching of thinking in general to students with special needs, particularly students with LDs (LaFrance, 1995;Leshowitz et al, 1993;Rottman & Cross, 1990).…”

“…Relevant literature was reviewed (Al-Khatib., 2001;Carnine, 1991;Grossen, 1991;LaFrance, 1995;Lerner, 2003;Leshowitz et al, 1993;Montague, Warger, & Morgan, 2000;Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1993;Shondrick et al, 1992;Swanon & Stomel, 2012;Swartz, Kiser, & Reagan, 1999). The literature review emphasized the importance of teaching thinking skills and strategies for students with LDs to facilitate their understanding for academic subjects and meet the issues they face in their daily lives.…”

“…Even those educational experts have emphasised on importance of critical thinking skills and integrate them within curriculum (De Bono, 1998;Leshowitz et al, 1993;Paul, 1984;Qatami., 2005). It is worth mentioning, teaching thinking skills have been started in public education towards gifted students particularly.…”