Thinking Strategies

Staff members at Frontier Valley Elementary use seven research- based thinking strategies as tools to help learners define and describe their understanding across content and curriculum.

Students Playing with a RobotWe believe that our students should:

  • Ask Questions
  • Create Mental Images
  • Draw Inferences
  • Synthesize New Learning and Ideas
  • Activate, Utilize, and Build Background Knowledge (Schema)
  • Determine the Most Important Ideas and Themes
  • Monitor for Meaning and Problem-Solve When Meaning Breaks Down

Students at Frontier Valley learn to use these strategies to be more active, reflective, and engaged in their learning. As part of their instruction, our teachers model and gradually invite students to use each strategy independently. Students learn to use the thinking strategies to anchor their understanding of the Colorado Academic Standards.   The strategies themselves give our teachers a common language to help children become more engaged in their learning, more active in their thinking, and more refined in their understanding.