PROPOSING MEASURES TO DEVELOP CRITICAL THINKING   FOR PRIMARY STUDENTS THROUGH EXTENSIVE READING ACTIVITIES   IN THE VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE SUBJECT

Nguyen Thi Phong Le; Duong Thi Kim Oanh

Nguyen Thi Phong Le	lentp25.ncs@hcmute.edu.vn	Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Engineering, Vietnam No. 01 Vo Van Ngan street, Thu Duc ward, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Duong Thi Kim Oanh*	oanhdtk@hcmute.edu.vn	Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Engineering, Vietnam No. 01 Vo Van Ngan street, Thu Duc ward, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Summary:

In the context of implementing the 2018 General Education Curriculum, which emphasizes competency-based development, fostering critical thinking in elementary students has become a central task. Although extensive reading activities in the Vietnamese subject are considered an environment for cultivating this competency, in practice, the organization of teaching primarily focuses on exploiting textual content at a reproductive level, without systematically guiding students in higher-order thinking skills. Drawing on the ACER framework for critical thinking development, which identifies three core competency groups, this article proposes four sets of measures for organizing extensive reading activities to develop these components in students comprehensively: Selecting potentially rich sources of extensive reading materials; guiding students in using visual tools to organize textual information; organizing reading-inference activities and multidimensional discussions; and facilitating activities for comparing and evaluating texts, as well as creative response writing. These findings not only support teachers in systematically designing extensive reading instruction aimed at developing critical thinking but also foster students’ reading interest, form self-study habits, and cultivate a reading culture.

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Keywords:

critical thinking

ACER framework

extensive reading

primary students

the Vietnamese Language subject.

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Journal:

No. 6, June 2026

VIETNAM JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES

THE VIETNAM NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES

PROPOSING MEASURES TO DEVELOP CRITICAL THINKING FOR PRIMARY STUDENTS THROUGH EXTENSIVE READING ACTIVITIES IN THE VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE SUBJECT