The Cultivation Of Primary School Students’ Critical Thinking In English Picture Book Reading Teaching

Nowadays,Critical Thinking Awareness and Skills are two of the basical essential qualities for innovative talents.For the past few years,many Chinese educational researchers have developed a keen interest in the cultivation of Critical Thinking.However,their subjects of research are mainly university students and high school students,while relatively few empirical researches have been carried out on the cultivation of primary school students’ critical thinking.In view of this,the thesis is based on the theory of Paul’s cultivating model of critical thinking and Piaget’s children’s psychological development theory.Also,the Paul’s cultivation models of critical thinking is brought into primary school English “picture book” reading instruction.In fact,firstly,this thesis aims to explore how to cultivate primary school students’ critical thinking and English reading ability.Secondly,the thesis aims to verify the effect of introducing critical reading methods into English picture book reading instruction,as well as to provide some references for cultivating primary school students’ critical thinking.A total of 76 students from Grade 5 in the XX Primary School were selected as the research subjects.English picture books were selected as the teaching materials,and the research lasted for four months.The data for this research were collected by The Critical Thinking Disposition Questionnaire,the reading part Cambridge Younger Learners’ English Test,Critical Thinking Skills and interviews.SPSS20.0 software was adopted to analyze the data.To achieve the research purpose,three research questions are raised: Firstly,after the experiment,are the students’ critical thinking skills and critical thinking disposition increased significantly? Secondly,after the experiment,is students’ English reading ability increased significantly? Thirdly,does critical thinking affect students’ English reading ability? If yes,is it a positive one?In this research,Class1 Grade 5 was selected as the experimental class,which was taught in the critical reading teaching mode.As for Glass 5 Grade 5,it served as the control class,which was taught in the old-fanshioned teaching method.Before the experiment,independent sample T-test was conducted to analyze subjects’ scores of English reading ability,critical thinking skills and critical thinking awareness.The results showed that students in the experimental class and the control class had similar English reading ability,and no significant difference was found in critical thinking skills and awareness scores.During the experiment,students’ participation was recorded and observed.After the experiment,independent sample T-test,paired-samples T-test and correlation analysis were conducted to analyze subjects’ scores of English reading ability,critical thinking skills and critical thinking awareness,then to find whether there were changes in critical thinking skills,awareness and reading ability of experimental classes’ students.The current situation of primary school students’ critical thinking skills and critical thinking disposition are not strong.After the experiment,the research found that critical thinking ability and awareness of students from the experimental class were significantly improved and their English reading ability was significantly enhanced as well.Besides,students with strong critical thinking skills also had relatively strong English reading ability.Moreover,guided by teachers properly,students’ enthusiasm for participating in classroom activities had been significantly increased,and the breadth and depth of answering questions were strengthened as well.