| #1 - Build students' basic figural and verbal critical thinking skills: |
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School Purchase Orders
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 Core thinking skills: Recommended:
Data from using BTS to raise test scores at East Elementary School - Monroe NC:
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Comprehension Skills:
Recommended:
Kindergarten prep:
Recommended:
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Stanford Achievement Test
SAT |
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NEW!
TEST PREP BOOK BUNDLES
There isn't an easier or more effective way to bring standardized test prep into your classroom!
Each bundle saves you 10%
off Critical Thinking Company cover prices
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NEW! Rising Stars Series for SAT prep!
"Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad
 WHAT IS THE RISING STARS SERIES?
The Rising Stars Series is a collection of classic novels that are annotated with chapter descriptions and word definitions to the challenging but useful words therein. Thus each Rising Stars book is an all-in one combination of Novel, Cliff's Notes, and Thesaurus.
The Rising Stars Series is one of the most effective ways to increase students' vocabulary AND absorb great literature for school or for pleasure. Each novel is annotated with succinct definitions to every challenging word that appears on the SAT. The annotations are right there- on the same page as the highlighted word - no flipping back and forth to indexes.
The series improves every year, not only with new annotated novels, but with additions to existing novels' databank as the SAT invokes new words into its tested lexicon. The SAT publishes four tests each year. Rising Stars takes the words for every test, and adds them to its vocabulary data bank. Thus, the Rising Stars Series will help the serious student throughout his or her academic career via software purchases or downloaded upgrades.
Every registered Rising Stars purchaser has access to the Rising Stars vocabulary data bank. Rising Stars is affiliated with Ivy Bound Test Prep, a private company that tracks all the published words on the SAT and helps its clients study for the Math, Reading, and Writing portions of the SAT. Your registered purchase of this book allows you to access this database for the upcoming academic year at no extra charge.
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Cornell Critical Thinking Tests
The most widely recognized critical thinking test
Cornell sets the standard for all critical thinking tests!
The Cornell Critical Thinking Tests develop a clear picture of your students' critical thinking abilities. The tests can be used to teach critical thinking skills, to predict students' performance on your state proficiency exam, or for honors/AP programs, critical thinking courses, college admissions, careers, and employment.
Level X includes Induction, Deduction, Credibility, and Identification of Assumptions. Level Z includes the skills in Level X plus Semantics, Definition, and Prediction in Planning Experiments. Documentation contains administration and scoring information, norms, consistency, reliability, item analysis, validity, and answers. Tests may be administered as 50-minute timed or as untimed evaluations.
James Madison Test of Critical Thinking
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The most comprehensive test of critical thinking.
Formerly Known as: Comprehensive Test of Critical Thinking
50, 100, 200, & 1000 test licenses available
Go to the Online Store for details
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Coming soon!
James Madison Critical Thinking Course |
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The Test Prep Fallacy
At BRAIN-athon Emporium we are firm believers in giving children of all ages fun and engaging materials that stimulate deeper levels of analytical thinking.
We do not believe in teaching content, as that merely provides information that can be discarded once the test has been taken. While memorization and drill are important aspects of learning, they do not give our children skills necessary for making life decisions and solving complex problems. Most curriculums give "knowledge" followed by an "application" exercise. This skips a critical step - UNDERSTANDING.
According to "Bloom's Taxonomy", we must delve even deeper and empower our children with the skills to "analyze", "synthesize", and then "evaluate" the information AND their personally-drawn conclusions.
Once a child has developed these skills (and I believe these are innate gifts that need to be fed and watered to thrive and to flourish), he/she can approach new content with developed strategies and with confidence. |
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More Than One Way to Solve a Problem
While this is true, how many ways do YOU need to know to solve that problem?
Each of us, including our children, process information differently. We have been hearing for years about different learning styles and personality styles.
Most mainstream textbooks (especially Mathematics), will guide children through each strategy, showing them all of the different ways to arrive at a soution. The problem with this method is that children begin to doubt their problem solving abilities when they are being presented with strategies that defie their personal logic. They worry that they've been doing it wrong, since they don't do it THAT way. Also, many math books spiral, which gives children with advanced skills a disadvantage, as it bogs them down with metriculate steps which to them are just "common sense".
The materials we carry are VERY different. If you are looking for a program to just hand to your child to complete, you've come to the wrong place. However, The Critical Thinking Company GUARANTEES that if you spend just 10-20 minutes a day with your child, using these materials, their grades and their test scores will improve! |
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How do does it work?
Keeping with the Mathematics theme, our Mathematical Reasoning Through Verbal Analysis series provides open-ended activities that require your child to process the directions and the problem being presented. They will not so much solve problems involving computation, but reorganize information given to them to allow for the understanding of basic math concepts. Your child will give his answer based on his own processing strategies. An example is given at the start of each section and, with the help of the Instruction/Answer Guide, you will ask key questions that will help your child focus and analyze what needs to be done. The Guide also provides you with key questions to ask your child to help him explain his reasoning. This develops verbalization skills, and also provides you with a "window" into how your child processes information.
What I've loved about this series is developing a natural questioning strategy that evokes thoughtful responses from my children that I can use across the curriculum. When children really understand the processes involved in problem-solving, they not only become problem-solving experts but also seek out the next challenge.
"That was fun! Can we do another one?" should be expected. °Ü°
Our comprehension building series, "Reading Detective", "Math Detective", and "Science Detective" teach children basic strategies for comprehension (not to be confused with memorization). Each sentence in the activity topic is numbered so that the students can give "evidence" for their answer without writing a lengthy explanation. This encourages them to peruse through what they have just read to find the sentence # (and subsequently unknown answers).
Many children are under the false assumption that if they can't remember after reading once, they are either poor students or poor readers. Where do they learn that they are expected to memorize what they have read? Probably nowhere - they have just not been taught that comprehension involves strategies for pinpointing relevant information after they've read the selection, and NOT memorization.
I am confident that after using these products for even a short time, you will see attitudes towards learning improve and more independent thinking.
Teach your child HOW to think, not just what to think!
Your kids are gonna LOVE this stuff! °Ü° | |
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Connecticut Mastery Test
CMT |
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Otis-Lennon Standard Ability Test
OLSAT 8 |
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A single home license is an agreement between software publisher and the individual to legally install the CD-ROM on one computer for use at home. A single school license is an agreement between software publisher and the school to legally install the CD-ROM on one computer. A site license is an agreement between software publisher and the school site to legally copy the disk for use in the school building. A network version is a piece of software designed to run on a single file server which can be accessed by multiple workstations.
Site and network licenses offer the most economical way to service large numbers of students.
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Which books for which test? |
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