HIGHER-LEVEL THINKING SKILLS DEVELOPMENT BY READING LITERARY AND INFORMATIONAL TEXTS IN LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE TEXTBOOKS IN 3-4 GRADES

Reading and reading comprehension is necessary for almost every area of life. Therefore, it is important to start develop reading comprehension skills already in primary school. According to the international (PIRLS, 2001, 2006, 2011) and the national (2005, 2007, 2012) student achievement is observed that some 4 grade students literary and informational texts comprehension skills are deteriorating. Particular attention should be given to higher-order thinking skills development, i.e. textual information interpretation, integration, evaluation, because the results of these skills significantly descended over the past five years. Study of two alternative Lithuanian language textbooks for 3-4 grades helped to identify that given comprehension tasks develops student's lower and higher-order thinking skills but some differences noticed as well. One textbook contains questions and tasks oriented to the lower level of thinking, i.e., the knowledge, understanding and the application of skills. In another textbook there are more questions and tasks that focus on higher-level thinking, i.e. analysis, synthesis and evaluation skills. Either in researched textbooks differ the number of questions and tasks for understanding literary and informational texts. This article presents results of the study, which revealed a higher-level thinking skills development by reading literary and informational texts in alternative Lithuanian language textbooks for 3-4 grades.