HOTS revisited: A thinking development approach to reducing the learning gap after grade 3

Phi Delta Kappan

Volumn 87, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 64-75

  Pogrow, Stanley ^a  

^a SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 26644466326     PISSN: 00317217     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/003172170508700111     Document Type: Review

References (16)

1. The corresponding figures for whites were 18% below basic and 39% proficient or advanced.
2. Stanley Pogrow, "Challenging At-Risk Students: Findings from the HOTS Program," Phi Delta Kappan, January 1990, pp. 389-97.
3. Bruce Bower, "Talkative Parents Make Kids Smarter," Science News, 17 August 1996, p. 100.
4. This report is based on research by Betty Hart and Todd Risky, both affiliated with the University of Kansas. For a description of their actual research, see Betty Hart and Todd Risley, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children (Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes, 1995).
5. Mary Ann Darmer, "Developing Transfer and Metacognition in Educationally Disadvantaged Students: Effects of the Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) Program" (Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, 1995).
6. It was difficult to tell how much of this differential retention was due to higher dropout rates among the control students as opposed to the possibility that more of them simply moved out of the district. At the same time, the data strongly suggest a higher dropout rate among the control students.
7. In all four cases there were unusual circumstances that caused the retention, e.g., getting pregnant, being absent frequently to visit a father who lived in another state, or dealing with a mother in jail and the recent death of a brother.
8. Jean Schemo and Ford Fessenden, "Gains in Houston Schools: How Real Are They?," New York Times, 3 December 2003, pp. A-1, A-7.
9. For a discussion of the cognitive wall and a critique of the research on the sustained effects of early intervention, see Stanley Pogrow, "Beyond the Good Start Mentality," Education Week, 19 April 2000, pp. 44, 46.
10. For an example of those who argue that "learning disability" is not really a category of learning problem, see Louise Spear-Swerling and Robert J. Sternberg, "Curing Our 'Epidemic' of Learning Disabilities," Phi Delta Kappan, January 1998, pp. 397-401.
11. An indicator of the unique success of HOTS is that, when the North-west Regional Educational Laboratory compiled its list of validated programs, HOTS was lumped in the category of "other," along with a computerized drill program. When 1 asked why it was not put into a category called "thinking programs," I was told that it was the only one and that the lab could not have a category for just one program. In addition, the only other well-documented example of an intervention that reduces the learning gap on a large scale after the third grade that I can find is intensive involvement of 10th-graders in drama/theater productions.
12. As I indicated above, none of this is meant to say that we should not provide thinking experiences earlier, but the nature of the thinking activities and their balance with basic skills need to be different in the primary grades.
13. Recent reports of gains on federal tests were limited to the performance of 9-year-olds. Conversely, as predicted by the HOTS findings, reading scores for 13-year-olds were no higher than those in 1980. See Sam Dillon, "Young Students Post Solid Gains in Federal Tests," New York Times, 15 July 2005.
14. Students can start in HOTS as early as the middle of the third grade. In addition, Linda Schoolcraft of Cleveland County, North Carolina, has been experimenting with a variation of the program that begins in second grade.
15. When HOTS is provided after school, the students can meet fewer times a week, but the total number of minutes - 165 to 180 - must remain the same.
16. Alternatively, high-poverty schools that decide to use HOTS as a specialty program may choose to place only their stable students in HOTS and provide an alternative supplement to their mobile students.