A Study of Critical Thinking Skills in Children's Fictions

Critical thinking as a way of thinking affects our attitudes and behaviors. It includes skills like the ability to describe the purpose, formulating the question, gathering relative data and criticizing them, adopting clear options toward different issues and judging based on evidence and reasonable documents leading to problem solving. Fiction plays an important role in enhancing the formation of the above skills in children by involving them in situations that might not be experienced in real daily life, also strengthening reading skills and comprehension. If the characters of children books think critically, they can be very effective on the readers through observative learning. In this research the writers have been trying to make a link between critical thinking and fictional elements in order to evaluate the existence of these components in Iranian children fictions. To validate the research, Richard Paul’s seventeen key skills have been selected and used in several stories to identify whether these skills have been considered in them or not. And if the skills have been existed, in which fiction elements have been observed. The research population is 14 children’s books (for ages 10-12) listed as the honored list in the Children’s Book Council of Iran (CBCI) from 1343 to 1385 (1964-2006). Apparently “The Reality and the Wise Man” (Haghighat va Marde Dana) and “the Tiny Black Fish” (Mahi Siahe Koochooloo) are on the top of the list of using the component of the critical thinking. The main weaknesses in the fictions are the existence of interfering narrators that weaken inferences and interpretation skill in readers, lack of humor, lack of new techniques to create new atmosphere, lack of effective characters to strengthen children’s intellectual skills, and themes deeply conforming to social norms and rules. The research showed that ethical reasoning abilities compared to other skills proved to be the strongest component.