Promoting children’s creative thinking through reading and writing in a cooperative learning classroom

The objectives of the present study were to investigate whether students' creative thinking can be enhanced through a structured program of reading and writing activities in the context of a cooperative learning classroom, and to test for a possible correlation between improvements in creative thinking and improvements in academic performance. Sixty fifth-grade students from a primary school in the south of Spain participated over two months: half received reading and writing activities in a cooperative learning classroom (experimental group, n=30), and half received the standard fifth-grade reading and writing program (control group, n=30). Creative thinking was assessed through a divergent thinking task (CREA Test; Corbalán et al., 2003), and Grade Point Average (GPA) was used as index of academic achievement. The results revealed a significant increase in creativity scores in the experimental group as compared with the control, and a moderate positive correlation between creative thinking and academic achievement. The present findings are consistent with the idea that creative thinking (divergent thinking) can be enhanced with reading and writing activities implemented through cooperative learning in school-age children.