Possibly the biggest challenge teachers face in the classroom is getting their pupils to think for themselves. When children learn to think independently, they are able to take control of their own learning. What's more, they become good at dealing with the many problems that life will inevitably throw their way - not only good at solving these problems, but at choosing the kind of thinking strategies that will help solve them.

Helping your pupils to think for themselves defines the various types of thinking (critical, creative, reflective) and discusses in detail the most crucial type of thinking for student progress - metacognition, which invoves self-assessment, active decision making and personal goal setting. Focusing on how to choose and use a particular type of thinking or strategy for a particular purpose, this book shows teachers how they can do a audit of their pupils' thinking skills and identify their pupils' thinking preferences and dispositions, to foster a thinking culture in their classrooms and ensure that all their pupils become skilled and independent thinkers.

This book suggests ways to organise the classroom, provides teaching strategies and pupil activities and gives notes on assessment and record-keeping. It is complemented by several pages of proformas, which can be copied or amended for use in the classroom.

"Rigby Star" is a guided reading programme developed specifically to meet the requirements of the NLS. It offers stories and teaching support to help plan and manage guided reading lessons - all within a structured reading programme. Teaching versions offer support for every title, with prompts for discussing the story summary; preparing pupils for the "walkthrough", in which the pupils think about such clues to the book as the blurb, the cover image and title. The readers are part of a carefully levelled structure to help ensure that every child has the right book, at the right time. Every book has links to independent/group reading and writing activities. The scheme also offers support for follow-up and assessment, such as suggestions for further activities and assessment. There is a writing activity linked to every book.

Part of Rigby Star Guided series this is the only programme built specifically for guided reading. Its rich, multi-layered stories and non-fiction texts by top quality authors and illustrators are guarantreed to captivate children and facilitate discussion.

Asking questions and caring about the answers is a pivotal part of becoming an independent learner. In this handy practical, the authors provide strategies that help students and teachers effectively and critically evaluate what they read, see, hear, and do. "Out of the Question" explores such key issues as: why ask questions?nurturing questions in the classroom;promoting deeper thinking;generating an emotional response;encouraging creativity;building questioning skills;assessing the questioning process.

The core activities in this practical guide focus on formulating questions that uncover what is relevant, what is of interest, what is legitimate, what is authentic, and what requires further investigation. It examines the role of teacher and student in answering and asking questions, looks at the structure of questions, and offers rubrics and checklists for assessment.