Why is reasoning important in your child’s development?

If you’ve taken a look at our MagiKats workshops and what we can help your child with, you may have noticed that in addition to teaching maths and English, we talk about “reasoning” along with study skills, thinking skills and social skills. That often begs the question, why is reasoning so important in your child’s development, and so in this post, we explain.

What are reasoning skills?

Reasoning skills help develop your child’s ability to objectively analyse and evaluate a situation and to solve problems in a logical and efficient way. Reasoning usually falls into three categories; verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, and mathematical reasoning.

We use these skills in everyday life all the time, so with good reasoning skills you can break down complex problems, identify patterns, and work out what information is relevant (and what isn’t). Reasoning is also about logical thinking, identifying cause-and-effect relationships and applying flexible thinking to different situations.

Are children tested on their reasoning skills in their SATs?

Yes, there are two maths reasoning papers at the end of Year 6 that will form part of your child’s SATs. These are designed to assess your child’s logical thinking skills and their ability to pick out important information and explain their answers through calculations. In short, the papers test your child’s ability to apply the maths they have learnt.

SATs reasoning question example

An example of a reasoning question in a SATs paper might be: a packet of paper has 180 sheets, five children each take eight sheets. How many sheets of paper are left in the packet?

Although the actual ‘sums’ involved in this question might be simple, without the necessary skills, a child might struggle to answer and lose valuable marks.

Do they study reasoning in school?

Reasoning skills are about the practical application of the techniques your child has learnt.  As an important part of the National Curriculum, schools try to create opportunities to develop mathematical reasoning skills in the classroom. However, the challenge for schools is often finding the time to do so in a busy classroom. As a result, the SATs reasoning papers can prove challenging. Primary schools don’t generally teach things like verbal reasoning.

Are children tested on their reasoning skills in their CATs?

Yes, there are four main areas which are assessed as part of your child’s CATs in Year 7, namely: verbal reasoning (thinking and problem solving with words), non-verbal reasoning (thinking and problem solving with shapes and space), quantitative reasoning (thinking and problem solving with numbers) and spatial reasoning (visualising, picturing, and moving shapes around).

Not all secondary schools require your child to sit CATs but if they do, they are taken at the beginning of Year 7 and are used as a benchmark of your child’s overall intelligence, ability and potential. They can also be used to help the school stream your child and to predict future achievements such as GCSEs and National 4 and 5s.

Will my child be tested on reasoning in their GCSEs and National 4 and 5s?

Whilst there may not be a separate reasoning GCSE or National 4 and 5 exam, reasoning is an integral part of many papers, with emphasis being placed on problem-solving and mathematical reasoning, and with marks being allocated to these skills.

The wider importance of reasoning skills when young

Apart from forming an important part of the National Curriculum and your child’s tests and exams during their time at school, reasoning skills have a much broader importance.

From an early age, reasoning helps explain the world to your child. As they become curious about the world around them, they will start to develop reasoning skills which enable them to answer some of their questions, to distinguish right from wrong and to understand how things work.

In school, strong reasoning skills will help with all your child’s subjects including science and languages as well as more creative subjects. It also supports good study skills and helps with a variety of problem-solving situations. Reasoning helps children both interpret and answer questions. They aid mature thinking and what’s called meta-cognition (the ability to monitor and assess your own thinking thereby improving learning and awareness) and assist children to make more rational decisions and see things from a different perspective. This in turn can build empathy and understanding and enable children to see things in a more rounded and objective way. Reasoning skills also help children to compare and contrast, draw conclusions and have more confidence to deal with real life issues.

The wider importance of reasoning skills in adult life 

In adult life, reasoning skills are vital both at work and at home. They help us to develop arguments, recognise misinformation, they save us time solving problems, and help us come up with new ideas. Many employers also use a variety of reasoning tests as part of their recruitment process.

Reasoning at MagiKats

It’s clear to see that reasoning is essential to your child’s development and that’s why we put developing reasoning skills at the very heart of our workshops and tuition at MagiKats. We have an entire programme dedicated to developing your child’s verbal and non-verbal reasoning skills. Our programme is practical, it’s fun and it is suitable for any child aged 9 to 14.  Reasoning is important to exams success but it’s also important to learning, personal development, confidence and future career success.  In short, strong reasoning skills positively benefit many areas of life.

If you’d like to know more about how we integrate reasoning into our tuition, get in touch or contact your local centre.