Critical Thinking and Critical Reading: Issues and Implications

Critical thinking is an important and vital topic in modern education; but much evidence suggests that students ’ thinking skills are not adequate to meet the challenges that they face. Many educational reports have argued that the education systems fail to teach many students how to think effectively. All educators are interested in teaching critical thinking to their students. Many academic departments expect their professors and instructors to be well informed about the strategy of teaching critical thinking skills identify areas in one’s courses as the proper place to emphasize and teach critical thinking and develop and use some problems in exams that test students ’ critical thinking skills. On the other hand, Reading critically precedes thinking critically. Readers discover information and ideas when they analyze and reflect on the ideas they read. The topic of teaching students to think while reading – critical reading – should be central to any discussion of thinking skills. This paper reviews some theoretical issues of critical thinking and critical reading in English language teaching and defines some strategies that help students handle difficult material with confidence. Moreover, to pave the way for better thinking, the paper discusses the strategies involved in critical thinking while reading. It also elaborates the ways to teach critical thinking in the classroom and suggests the tactics employed during the class to ensure that students are actively engaged in thinking critically. Finally, this paper explains all classroom areas (lecture, homework, term papers and exams) in which critical thinking can be presented or emphasized.