Strategies to Develop Critical Thinking

Eight specific strategies that build critical thinking in real classrooms.

A teacher who uses these strategies regularly builds both the skill and the disposition. A teacher who uses none of them produces students who pass tests but cannot really think.

Strategy 1: Students act like a teacher

A counterintuitive strategy. Have students plan and teach a lesson themselves.

How it works. Give a student (or pair, or small group) a topic. Ask them to plan how to teach it to the class. They prepare materials, decide activities, and write questions.

Why this builds critical thinking. Planning to teach forces deep engagement with the content.

A student preparing to teach a topic must:

1. Decide what is important and what is not.
2. Anticipate what their classmates will find confusing.
3. Design activities that engage other students.
4. Write questions that test understanding.

The questions students design when “acting like teachers” reveal advanced thinking. Students often pose questions intentionally hard, trying to challenge their classmates. This requires sophisticated thinking.

The bonus benefit. Students sometimes know things their teachers do not. They are closer to other students’ confusions. Their lesson plans may catch difficulties the teacher would miss.

Practical implementation. Once a week, one or two students get a small topic. They have a few days to plan. They teach 10 to 15 minutes. The rest of the class participates.

After a year, every student has tried teaching. Their understanding deepens. Their thinking sharpens.

Strategy 2: Students as questioners

A related strategy. Students do not plan lessons but instead create questions from texts.

How it works. Give students a text to read. Ask them to develop questions about it. The questions should test understanding of the text.

Why this builds critical thinking. Creating good questions requires:

1. Understanding what the text says.
2. Identifying what is most important.
3. Distinguishing surface details from deeper meaning.
4. Anticipating what others might miss.

A student who can create good questions has thoroughly engaged with the text. A student who cannot probably did not read it carefully.

Question types to encourage. Different question types build different thinking. Lower-level questions (what happened? When?) test recall. Higher-level questions (why did X happen? What would have changed if Y?) test analysis. The richest questions are essential questions: open, controversial, and connected to bigger issues.

Practical implementation. After every reading, ask each student to write three questions. Pool the questions. Discuss the best ones. Use student questions for class discussion or quizzes.

Strategy 3: Critical reading with in-flight questions

While students read, the teacher pauses to ask questions.

How it works. Read aloud or have students read quietly. At intervals, stop. Ask a question that requires thinking. Wait for responses.

Why this builds critical thinking. Without pauses, students often coast through reading without active engagement. Words pass by without thought. Pauses force engagement.

The questions should not be simple recall (“what happened?”). They should require thinking: “What do you think the character will do next? Why?” “What is the author hinting at here?” “Is this fair? Why or why not?”

Practical implementation. During every reading lesson, build in 3 to 5 pauses with questions. Students answer before continuing. Discussion can be brief or extended. The pauses become a habit. Students start asking themselves questions even when the teacher does not pause.

Strategy 4: Children’s literature

Why literature works. Stories present:

1. Characters facing real problems.
2. Moral dilemmas without easy answers.
3. Multiple perspectives.
4. Cultural contexts.
5. Beautiful language and complex ideas.

Reading literature exposes students to all of these. They build mental flexibility, ethical reasoning, and critical engagement.

The Pakistani problem. Many Pakistani schools focus on textbooks and treat story reading as time-wasting. Parents do the same: “you are reading magazines, you should be studying.” This dismisses literature’s value.

But this view is wrong. Literature is not a “magazine” or a frivolous activity. It is one of the strongest tools for thinking development. Schools should make it compulsory. Class time should be spent on it.

Practical implementation. Every student should read at least one book per month outside the textbook. The class discusses each book. Students share their interpretations. They evaluate characters’ choices. They argue about meanings.

A class culture that values reading produces students who think.

Strategy 5: Writing to learn

Writing is more than a way to record what was learned. It is a way to learn.

How it works. Students write before, during, or after a lesson. The writing helps them think.

Two types of writing for learning.

Free writing. Students write whatever comes to mind on a topic. No grading, no judging, no editing. The goal is to capture thoughts before judgment kicks in.

Controlled writing. Students write more carefully, with structure and purpose. They have to think about what to include and what to leave out. They make choices.

Filtering is critical thinking. Choosing what is worth including. Defending those choices. This is what writers do, and what critical thinkers do.

Practical implementation. Begin lessons with 5 minutes of free writing on a question. End lessons with 5 minutes of more structured writing. Both develop thinking through the act of putting thoughts on paper.

Strategy 6: Classification games

Especially for younger children, classification games build critical thinking through hands-on sorting.

How it works. Give students a set of objects. Ask them to classify them by some criterion. They must decide which goes in which group.

Examples.

1. Leaves. Collect leaves from different trees. Students sort them: round, pointy, broad, like a peepal leaf, like a banyan leaf.
2. Bottle caps. Collect old bottle caps. Students sort by color, size, material, condition.
3. Pictures from newspapers. Cut out pictures. Students sort by topic, mood, time period, or any other criterion.
4. Foods. Real foods or pictures of food. Students sort by source (plant/animal), nutritional value, taste, color.

Why this builds critical thinking. Classification requires:

1. Observing details.
2. Identifying criteria.
3. Making judgments about which category each item belongs to.
4. Defending the classification (why is this leaf “round” rather than “broad”?).

These are the basic operations of critical thinking, in a form young children can do.

Practical implementation. No expensive materials needed. Used items work fine. Spend 15 to 20 minutes on a classification activity. Discuss the criteria afterward. Different groups may classify differently; debate which classification works best.

Strategy 7: Jigsaw puzzles and finding problems

Two related approaches.

Jigsaw puzzles. Children love puzzles. Working on a puzzle requires:

1. Looking at the big picture.
2. Identifying patterns.
3. Testing where pieces fit.
4. Recognizing relationships.

How it works. Provide jigsaw puzzles. Or make your own from old newspapers (cut into pieces, ask students to reassemble). Or use old magazines, calendars, photos.

You do not need to buy expensive jigsaw puzzles. A teacher can draw a picture and cut it into pieces. An old newspaper page cut into 20 pieces becomes a puzzle. Materials are free.

Finding problems. A different but related strategy. Ask students to identify problems in their environment.

How it works. Tell students to look around the school (or their classroom, or their community) and list problems they see.

Examples of student-found problems:

1. The canteen is not clean.
2. Older students take things from younger ones.
3. There is water stagnation by the gate.
4. The washroom is unhygienic.
5. My eraser disappears every day.
6. Other students copy my homework.

Why this builds critical thinking. Finding problems requires:

1. Observation.
2. Analysis (breaking the situation into parts).
3. Judgment (this is a problem, that is not).

Most schools never ask students to identify problems. Children may not develop this skill. The teacher who builds it gives students a powerful tool.

Important note. This is just identifying problems, not yet solving them. Problem-solving comes next. But identification is its own skill, and a critical one. That even just identifying problems builds thinking.

Strategy 8: Riddles

Riddles are puzzles in language form. Students think while reading.

How it works. Give students written riddles. They read carefully, look for clues, and find the answer.

Why written rather than spoken. specifies written riddles. Why? Because written riddles also build reading skills. The student must read carefully (a critical reading skill). They cannot only hear and respond. They must engage with the text.

Example riddle from.

The student reads carefully. They look for what is unusual. They might miss it on first read. They re-read. They check word patterns.

The answer. The most common letter in English is “e.” This paragraph contains no letter “e.” This is unusual.

A student who solves this riddle has practiced careful reading, attention to detail, and pattern recognition. All are critical thinking skills.

Practical implementation. Give students one riddle per week. Some are word puzzles. Some are logic puzzles. Some are visual. All require thinking.

Flashcard

What are the eight strategies to develop critical thinking in students?

Tap to reveal

Answer

Acting as teacher, questioning, critical reading, literature, writing to learn, classification, problem-finding, riddles

1. Students act like a teacher (plan lessons).

2. Students create questions from texts.

3. Critical reading with mid-text questions.

4. Real children’s literature with discussion.

5. Writing to learn (free and controlled).

6. Classification games with everyday objects.

7. Jigsaw puzzles and problem-finding.

8. Written riddles that build reading and thinking.

All eight require minimal resources. All eight fit any subject. All eight should be used regularly.

Combining the strategies

These eight strategies should not be used in isolation. A unit that includes literature, writing, riddles, and discussion of student-found problems is richer than a unit that uses only one strategy.

A typical month might include:

1. Read one piece of literature; discuss it.
2. Have students create questions from the literature.
3. Have students try teaching a small section.
4. Use riddles for warm-ups.
5. Run a classification activity.
6. Conclude with writing about the issues raised.

Across the month, students practice multiple thinking strategies. They develop a strong set of habits.

A teacher who uses these strategies for a year transforms their classroom. Students arrive expecting to think. They no longer accept information passively. They question, analyze, evaluate, and create.