This engaging 416-page book develops critical thinking skills necessary for success in reading, writing, math, science, social studies, and standardized tests in Grades 4-6. The Building Thinking Skills® series is the bestselling thinking skills program in the world! The engaging, highly-effective activities are developmentally sequenced. Each skill (for example, classifying) is presented first in the semi-concrete figural-spatial form. Students also learn important academic vocabulary, concepts, and skills as they analyze relationships between objects, between words, and between objects and words by:
• Observing, recognizing, and describing characteristics
• Distinguishing similarities and differences
• Identifying and completing sequences, classifications, and analogies

These processes help students develop superior thinking and communication skills that lead to deeper content learning in all subjects.

LEVEL 2

Figural-Spatial Skills
• Describing shapes
• Figures: compare / describe / copy / enlarge / divide
• Diagrams: overlapping classes / Venn / branching / cycle
• Mental pattern folding / symmetry
• Directionality / Position in space
• Mental rotation / reflection / tumbling / stacking / folding of 2-D objects
• Congruence / area / volume
• Analogies: size / color / orientation / detail
• Visual motor integration and memory
• Use of graphic organizers

Verbal Skills
• Spelling / Vocabulary / Writing: describing things and words
• Following and writing 1-, 2-, and 3-step directions
• Antonyms / synonyms
• Analogies: kind of / part of / used to / association / action
• Deductive / Inductive reasoning
• Parts of a whole
• Map reading
• Writing directions
• Logic: if-then / yes-no / true-false
• Orientation: person / place / time
• Auditory memory
• Language acquisition