State of Israel
Ministry of Education
English Inspectorate
Thinking Skills
Comprehending
Lower Order
Thinking Skills
(LOTS)
Organizing
Skills
Comparing/
Contrasting
Description
These skills are used to clarify the basic meaning of
the text before any analysis.
Who? What? Where? When?
Do you know? Can you identify…?
LOTS include understanding vocabulary, and
identifying setting, people involved, events,
conflict/problem /solution and relationships.
Sample Questions
Description
A variety of graphic organizers can be used for the organizing skills.
This thinking skill is used to compare and contrast at
least two things.
We learn something new by identifying the similar
and the dissimilar.
Classifying
Sample Questions
This thinking skill is used to create categories or
places something in an existing category. It should
include a justification of the classification. For
example, this is useful for classifying characters
(successful persona, heroic persona); classifying
imagery (metaphor, simile) etc.
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Compare and contrast the conflicts (e.g. problems / dilemmas) in two
texts / poems. Compare and contrast the cultural conventions in the
text with your own cultural background.
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Compare and contrast two of the persona
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Classify different relationships between the people in the text.
To what genre does this text belong?
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Organizing
Skills
Making
Connections
Sample Questions
Description
Organizing skills may be supported by graphic organizers
This thinking skill is used to promote thinking in multiple
dimensions. For example, making connections between the
fictional situation and real life.
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Parts and Whole
Different
Perspectives
This thinking skill is used to explain how the parts function
within the whole and how the whole is a unity despite the
fact that the parts are not all connected to each other. For
example, this thinking skill is used to consider how the
scenes of a play are part of an act. Another example is how
the rhyme, rhythm and imagery of a poem reinforce each
other to create a sense of unity.
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This thinking skill is used either to distinguish different
perspectives in the text or to distinguish different
perspectives of the readers of the text.
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2
Connect what the person says or does at this point in the text with
what we already know about him/her.
Connect a recent event in the text with an earlier one.
Connect the text with its context (historical, social, and cultural).
Connect this text with other texts.
Describe how one part/ different parts of the text contribute to your
understanding of the whole.
Identify a conflict in the text and show how it is portrayed in
different parts.
How does the title reflect the details of the text/poem? (whole/part)
In view of your knowledge of the text, explain the significance of the
title (part/whole).
Describe the writer’s point of view. How does the writer’s attitude
shape the way the events are presented?
Identify how different characters respond to a specific central event
in the text.
How does your understanding of the text differ from someone else’s
in the class?
How does your understanding of the events/characters’ actions
change with the development of the text?
Organizing
Skills
Sequencing
Sample Questions
Description
Organizing skills may be supported by graphic organizers
This thinking skill is used specifically for recreating the
chronology of a story that is presented in a nonchronological way. For example, recreating the chronology
of a text that switches back and forth between the present
and the past. Or recreating the chronology of a mystery story
in which a significant action, or series of actions, need/s to
be discovered in order to understand what has happened.
3
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Sequence the events in their chronological order.
How does the sequence of events in this text help you understand the
eventual outcomes?
How does the use of tenses help you understand the sequence of
events?
How does the sequence of the events in the text help make the
incident/account more interesting?
Analysis
Skills
Uncovering
Motives
Description
Sample Questions
This thinking skill is used to uncover motives which are the
underlying psychological reasons that explain the action, inaction
and/or attitudes of the people involved.
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Causal
Explanations
This thinking skill is used to explain the cause and effect
relationship between actions and events in a text. One cause may
have several effects. Similarly one effect may have many causes.
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Prediction
This thinking skill is used to predict both the content and the
outcome of the narrative. Prediction is used as a pre-reading and/or
a while reading thinking skill.
What can you find out from the text that explains what
causes _____ to (do) ______?
What does the story tell you about ______ that explains
why______?
What are the most significant cause and effect events in the
text?
What are the effects of _________’s actions?
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What was _____ trying to convince _____ to do? What
argument was used? What was the result?
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Predict whether_______? What reasons do you have for
your prediction?
What did ______ predict would happen? What reasons did
______ have for this prediction?
Are your expectations fulfilled or not?
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4
What explicit motives are mentioned for_____ actions?
How did these affect the decisions the person makes?
Infer the motives for the person’s actions.
What reasons did ____ give _____? Were these reasons well
founded?
Generation
Description
Sample Questions
Skills
Generating
Possibilities
This thinking skill is used to generate possibilities for solving
problems, for possible outcomes, and for creative responses
based on the text.
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Problem Solving
This thinking skill is used to identify a problem and either
identify its solution or suggest a possible solution, taking into
account the constraints and the options present in the text.
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Integrating Skills
Synthesis
Application Skills
Application
Description
What options does _______ have for resolving the dilemma?
Create a new character for the story. Explain how this will
affect the story.
Brainstorm possible different endings for the story.
What book/TV program/food would this character like?
Explain why.
Define the problem facing the protagonist.
How should ______decide what to do?
What should ______take/ have taken into account?
How might _______ prevent____?
What might you have done in the same situation?
Sample Questions
This thinking skill is used to integrate all aspects of one’s
understanding of the text and one’s insight into a text,
through a comprehensive statement and explanation.
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Description
Write a summary of the story in no more than one paragraph.
How does information we learn later in the text change the
way we understand a character (an issue/a conflict)?
Sample Questions
This thinking skill is used to apply the other thinking
skills to new contexts, either literary or non-literary.
This can include the implication the text has for us on a
personal or communal level or the implication the text
has for other texts.
5
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Apply a thinking skill to a new text.
Apply a thinking skill to a personal experience.
Apply thinking skills to other subjects studied at school.
Apply a literary term to another text