Any consideration of basic skills must at some point achieve the realization that a fundamental skill is the ability of the mind to create, produce, and utilize meaning. The purpose of productive and creative thinking is to know and understand, to produce and utilize meaning that serves to guide and direct mental and physical behavior. The overall process of thinking has been specified and designated with a large array and variety of process skills. The learner, as an information processing system, can only process that which relates to him in some way. Helping the child to make connections is helping him to operate more intelligently. The classroom is a contex for the child to improve his inquiry or process skills (e.g., sequencing, comparing, inferring) in working with and from the immediate. Teachers must help students to learn to think critically. Multiple ways of deriving teaching strategies that serve to foster the descriptive power of the learner are discussed. Included are: (1) questions teachers can ask; (2) a list of 20 principles about the processing and uses of meaning; (3) a note to parents; and (4) 43 ideas for enhancing learners' skill with productive thinking for both teacher and parent. (JMK)