Analyzing means observing something closely to reveal more about it. It means breaking down the whole into its parts and understanding the relationships involved-how the parts relate to each other and how they relate to the whole. When you break something down, you can see how it’s made. The “thing” can be an argument, a book, a sales pitch, or a party plan. Hence the universal application of analysis.

Analysis also reveals both the obvious and the hidden. For example, it’s obvious that water is liquid (one of its properties), but not that it is made up hydrogen and oxygen.

Analyzing activities for kids work only if they have a sense of what they are looking for. At the simplest level, having preschoolers break down the parts of a familiar whole is a good bet.

Example

Hey, have you ever noticed that hands have fingers? How many fingers does a hand have? Can you see different parts of the finger? (nails and knuckles) Do you think they all have the same job to do? No, why not?

As kids mature, you will notice that analyzing activities are coming home from school. In Language Arts, kids in Grade 3 may be analyzing how an author compares a person to a tree in a poem. Or they may be asked to analyze specific techniques that are used to enhance the presentation of information in different genres. How do those techniques work, and why they are effective?

In high school, analysis activities usually involve more inferring and concluding that they do at the elementary level. Students are asked to go beyond identifying the parts of the whole and use their more extensive knowledge base to see causes, patterns, or trends.

When kids come home with analyzing activities, you can help them by making sure they follow these basic steps, outlined by Barry K. Beyer, one of the foremost experts on thinking skills.

It may appeal to some kids if you describe this activity as “thinking like a detective.”

1. Understand why you are doing this analysis. What’s the purpose of it?
2. Figure out what evidence you need to accomplish the analysis. For example, if you are asked to analyze someone’s character, determine what clues would reveal that person’s character.
3. Now search the text or information for all those clues. In this case, you would be looking primarily for what that character said and did, and perhaps what other people said about him or her.
4. Look for relationships between and among the clues. What do you notice? Do you notice, for example, that one character lies to people and often schemes to get her way? That’s a pattern.
5. State the results of your analysis using the evidence you have gathered to support your results.

Once kids become adept at analyzing, they become less inclined to see information as just there-dead on the page-and more likely to view it as alive with statements, opinions, evidence, arguments, contradictions, and even fallacies. Reading analytically is also the very best way to learn to digest media critically. When your child hears something on TV that he or she vehemently disagrees with, don’t miss out on a golden thinking opportunity. Even if you disagree with your child’s opinion, encourage him or her to explain why something is so offensive. Break it down. Dig for reasons. Praise the evidence.

Analyzing tasks are particularly effective when they challenge kids to examine their own statements or theories. Parents have a teaching advantage here, as daily life provides lots of opportunities for intervention. So the next time your child declares, “Nobody shops there” or “Politics is stupid,” don’t sweat it-analyze it.