June 18, 2015

Strategies designed to develop students' background knowledge

By: Cal Hastings, Senior Director, Adolescent Literacy

Run of Play
Introductions and Learning Targets

Presentation and discussion

Planning and designing

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Learning Targets

1. Deepen our understanding of the role background knowledge plays in

supporting comprehension

2. Assess our current practice through the lens of building background

knowledge

3. Explore several strategies to build student background knowledge

4. Raise questions and issues specific increasing our success

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Why does background knowledge matter?

According to Fisher and Frey (2009), a student's prior knowledge about a

subject is probably the best predictor of reading comprehension. Research
indicates that children "continue to spin their wheels" when they don't have
the background knowledge required to understand much of what they are
reading (Fisher, Frey, and Lapp 2009; Langer 1984).

As the National Reading Panel (2000) noted, readers "access their background
knowledge to construct meaning from the text...Children read and comprehend
text by utilizing their linguistic and background knowledge combined with
their word reading skill." For students whose word reading skills are weak,
they depend primarily on their background knowledge of the topic and
memory of what they've read to comprehend the text.

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 Assessing Our Practice

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Three Practices Linked to Background Knowledge

Assess what students already know

Plan lessons and activities that build background knowledge

Design ways to activate students knowledge by having them interact with

content

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Assessing What Students Know

Using interest surveys

Opnionairre

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Activating What Students Know

Role of establishing a purpose for work/activities

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The Role of Establishing Purpose

Establishing purpose is key to activating background knowledge

Include:
Content: We will be preparing for a debate on the topic of whether it
is right to keep whales in aquariums?
Language: What words might we encounter as we explore this topic
Social: Youll be working in small groups to analyze different types
of information on whales in captivity.

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Quick Conversations and Quick Writes

Brief conversation and written response to a question

Should be a thought-provoking question: Are zoos an appropriate place
for all wild animals?
Gives students a psychologically safe environment to speculate
Avoid questions that are too simplistic
Extend these quick conversation and write questions by inviting students to
engage in structured partner or whole group discussions

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Strategies to Build Background Knowledge

Modeling
Teacher modeling of comprehension skills is effective with adolescents
(Alfassi, 2004)
Provides students with insights into the ways that an expert makes
cognitive decisions
An opportunity to profile discipline-specific expertise

Wide reading
Graphic organizers to strengthen schema
Guest speakers
Field trips and experiential learning

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 Wrap Up

Big ideas

1. Background knowledge matters

2. Assess, activate and build!

3. If we want it to happen we must plan for it.

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