Open Ended Questions in Early Childhood Education Promotes Critical Thinking Skills

Too often we find ourselves solving problems on behalf of our children. We direct them when to add more glue, where to put the ramp, how to stabilize the tower. We do this because we sincerely care and want to help – it’s often difficult and uncomfortable to see our children struggle or fail. Our reasoning is that if we show them the “right” way to do something, we will help them more quickly understand what to do when confronted with the same task or problem in the future. This mentality is common in early childhood education.

The troubles with this kind of thinking are numerous. First, we very rarely encounter the exact same problem or task twice, meaning that we rarely have identical solutions, so problem solving is a critical skill that doesn’t get developed when we solve problems for children. Second, we take away the opportunity for children to understand why something is done a certain way. If the answer to “why do we do this” is always “because that’s what I was told”, we will never be able to encourage the critical thought process necessary for problem solving and evaluating.

This idea goes hand in hand with the concept of providing opportunities for play. When children play, they enter a world of imagination and discovery. They decide how and when to create, build, and design the scenarios of their musings. If we step into their play to tell them what to do, we take away their control, and inadvertently take away their learning opportunities.

It is challenging to condition yourself to stand back when you see a child about to encounter a problem. It is in our nature to want to provide the solution when we know, per se, that the ball won’t roll down the path “unless we do this instead”. However, if we are able to remove ourselves from the situation and play the role of observer, we will see that a child is capable of hypothesizing, testing, and making adjustments to problem solve. The idea is this: if children aren’t afforded the chance to fail, they will may not get the opportunity to persevere and develop creative problem solving skills. Perseverance develops resilience, which is essential for children to create their own successes both now and years in the future. In the face of failure, children who can think critically without always depending on adults for answers will grow to be independent, thoughtful, and creative problem solvers.

One way we can enhance opportunities for learning in early childhood education is to ask open-ended questions. Instead of providing solutions for children, try questions like these instead:

• What are you trying to make/do?
• What materials might you need?
• What is working? What isn’t?
• How will you know if the problem is solved?
• What information would help you?
• Did you want to test that out?
• How did your tests go?

The transition from providing the answers to facilitating play and investigation is a challenging one, as it requires shifting our mindsets, breaking old habits and developing new ones. To help you, we’ve created a printable list of even more open ended questions and strategies that you can hang somewhere visible in your classroom as a reminder and useful tool.

What do you think? Do you currently use or plan on implementing open-ended questions into your teaching strategies? Let us know in the comments below!