The Critical Thinking Co. Review

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and other affiliate programs. An affiliate advertising is designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This post may contain affiliate links.

The Critical Thinking Co. has created a learning resource for aspiring detectives in your family. This review is for the Critical Thinking Detective – Vocabulary Book 2; an engaging way to introduce new vocabulary words and critical thinking.

The Critical Thinking Detective – Vocabulary Book 2

The Critical Thinking Detective – Vocabulary Book 2 is a workbook, filled with mysteries and crime, designed to increase vocabulary while using critical thinking skills by playing detective. With a focus on reading comprehension and observational skills, as well as inductive and deductive reasoning skills to solve the cases, this book is an interesting way to approach vocabulary skills.

Students must identify the meaning of new vocabulary as they try to uncover the subtle clues hidden in the statements from witnesses and suspects. Each mystery requires careful reading, critical thinking, and synthesizing information to identify the innocent and guilty.

The Critical Thinking Co.

For this review, I received the eBook version of this book. There is also a paperback version available. When you receive your eBook, it comes with a program to open the eBook. This program allows you to interact with the material – whether it be circling the suspect or filling in words.

In addition to the eBook, a notebook and a dictionary were very helpful tools to have on hand.

Depending on the age of your child, it may take longer to work through this material. For high school students, it is suggested to work on one case a week. For younger students, The Critical Thinking Co. suggests doing one case every 2 weeks. This is a complicated critical thinking project and should not be rushed. Encourage your student to take their time and really think through the cases and situations.

How To Use The Critical Thinking Detective – Vocabulary Book 2

WIthin the Critical Thinking Detective – Vocabulary Book 2, there are 12 different cases you are to solve.

The book starts with a description of how they suggest using the material and tips on how to solve the cases. The first part of each section is the case itself. You are given a brief description of the case and then statements from the suspects. Within each case, there are 18-24 vocabulary words for the students to focus on. The second part is using the vocabulary words to fill in the blanks in the sentences. This allows the words to be used in different contexts. This book is designed to increase vocabulary and critical thinking skills. The author suggests that you solve the case before working on the vocabulary words.

The Critical Thinking Detective – Vocabulary Book 2 is designed for grades 5-12+.

The Cases

There are 12 different cases within this book

• The Thieving Blatherskite
• The Disruptive Denizen
• The Pernicious Polluter
• The Prevaricator
• The Trying Troglodyte
• The Insolent Imposter
• The Malingering Manager
• The Careless Curator
• The Emphatic Editor
• The Jackleg Carpenter
• The Fluent Finagler
• The Bellicose Hoarder

Each case is separated into two segments.

The first segment is a statement about the case. These statements are written in the style of a news article and contain testimony from a witness.

The second segment is the suspects’ statements about the situation that occurred. Each suspect gives a sentence or two which adds more information about their whereabouts when the crime occurred.

The author makes it very clear that all of the information and each of the statements is true.

When you have solved the case, you circle the guilty suspect. The program that came with the digital download for the eBook has a circle function built right in, which is a nice feature. You can also print out the pages if you wanted to work on the material that way.

Vocabulary Practice

After you solve the cases, the next part is designed to help you use the vocabulary words in another context.

For each case, there is a list of the different vocabulary words associated with that case and then multiple sentences with spaces for you to fill in with the vocabulary words.

You have the option to print out these cases but you can also fill in the answers directly into the eBook. Like circling the suspect from the previous section, there is also a typewriter tool to fill in the blanks or lines to cross out words you have already used directly into the eBook.

It might seem like common sense, but just remember to save your answers! There is no auto-save and I accidentally closed the eBook without realizing it after we had completed one of our cases.

How We Used The Critical Thinking Detective EBook

During the review period, we were able to work on three cases.

We started with the first case, The Thieving Blatherskite. Originally, we attempted to figure it out by working on the words as we read the case but quickly realized this was not going to suffice. We got a notebook and wrote out the definitions for each word as well as the synonym listed in the answer key. This was a very difficult case and we were not able to work out the correct answer. The last few pages of the eBook is an answer key, which does provide the reasoning to solve the case. After reading the reasoning, we still were not convinced that we would have been able to figure it out with the information provided.

My grade 5 student was slightly discouraged by this but we were able to discuss many possible outcomes for the case and applied it to real life detective work and how it is so hard to solve cases sometimes.

Changing Our Approach

After that case, I decided to read through all of the cases and all of the answer keys. Since the first one was so difficult, I wanted to find a case that would be easier to solve and help to build the confidence of my grade 5 student to continue to use this program.

The next case we did was The Pernicious Polluter. The vocabulary words, in this case, were a lot easier for us as they were more familiar. The first case had words we had never heard of and would never use in everyday speech. The vocabulary choices, in this case, were actually words that would increase our everyday vocabulary. The solution to this case was also a lot more clear and my son was able to figure it out without looking at the answer key.

The case that we are currently working on is The Trying Troglodyte. We are currently focusing on the different vocabulary words presented in this case. Once we feel we can comfortably use these words, we will then go on to attempt to solve the case. Once we have solved the case we will move on to the fill in the blank vocabulary section.

Final Thoughts

I used this eBook with my son who is in grade 5 but has a high reading comprehension ability for his age. We found it to be a little difficult at this stage. The vocabulary itself was not overly challenging for him but the cases were quite difficult to solve.

I think this would be perfect for high school students who like solving word problems and are looking to work on their vocabulary and critical thinking skills.

The cost of this book, whether buying it in paperback or as an eBook, is $8.99USD for the paperback or the eBook. I think that that is a very reasonable price for this product.

The Critical Thinking Co. also has many other titles like this one as well as full curriculum available.

Discount Alert!!

Special Offer from CriticalThinking.com: Free Shipping + 15% Off Any Size Order!  Coupon: TOSCREW19 Expires: 12/31/2019

Some of the books available are:

• Pattern Explorer Beginning (Grades 3-4)
• Elementary Math Games (Grades 3-5) 
• Critical Thinking Detective – Vocabulary Book 2 (Grades 5-12+)
• Dare to Compare: Math Level 2 (Grades 6-7)
• Middle School Math Games (Grades 6-8)
• Building Writing Skills – Essential Tips & Techniques (Grades 6-12+)  This title is ONLY available as digital.
• Vocabulary Virtuoso PSAT-SAT Book 1 (Grades 8-12+)
• Vocabulary Virtuoso PSAT-SAT Book 2 (Grades 8-12+)

The Homeschool Review Crew was able to review all of these titles! Check out the other reviews for The Critical Thinking Co.!