Making Learning Connections: Compare, Contrast, and Classify

One of the cognitive assets that we stress in our program is the ability to compare, contrast and classify. Teachers can help students find meaning in what they are reading or discovering in the classroom by suggesting that they make comparisons and classify new information. This helps them to analyze and connect the new information they are learning with what they already know. Thinking about how things are the same and different is useful even for young children as a first step toward classification and more detailed analysis.

For example, the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics call for kindergartners to learn to “analyze and compare two- and three-dimensional shapes, in different sizes and orientations, using informal language to describe their similarities, differences, [and] parts.” By third grade, students should be able to “understand that shapes in different categories … may share attributes … and that the shared attributes can define a larger category.”

Explicit instruction of making comparisons involves calling attention to the steps of noticing similarities and differences and identifying key attributes that might be useful in classification.

Supporting Teachers to Implement Common Core State Standards

I am happy to see that there are a number of sessions at the Florida Virtual School conference to support educators in Florida and other states that are implementing the Common Core State Standards. Although the standards are not entirely new to many states that have had various types of standards, it is now expected that students will learn to use cognitive strategies alongside content. In many communities this is a departure from what has been expected, thus, it is important to include in professional development planning now and over time. To assist with implementation of cognitive standards in educational settings, consider doing a book study connecting local requirements for Common Core with our text, Thinking for Results, 2012 (Amazon.com).