Learning Thinking

The Cognitive Education Project centered at the University of Alberta undertook a 3-year longitudinal evaluation of two cognitive education programs aimed at teaching thinking skills. The critical difference between the two experimental programs was that one, Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment (IE) method was taught out of curricular content, while the other, Strategies Program for Effective Learning/Thinking (SPELT), was taught directly within curricular content. The effectiveness of these two programs was compared with traditional instruction at grades 4 and 7 for 900 gifted, learning disabled, a.-.d normally achieving students. Results indicate that cognitive education was effective in improving student thinking, especially for the grade-4 learning disabled students, and to a lesser extent for the gifted students, in reading comprehension and comprehension monitoring. The SPELT program tended to produc