Background Knowledge

Hi All! Thank you so much for an amazing week at PVES!  We were sooo excited to have our whole school family back together again!  

In PLCs next week, we will be talking about Background Knowledge.  Now we all know that our kiddos all come with different levels of schema/background knowledge. We work to build background knowledge through nonfiction texts and videos.  

This is a great video from Reading Rockets discussing background knowledge!

While digging for how background knowledge supports SOR I came across The Baseball Study by Recht & Leslie.  This friends seems obvious but it in many ways it the opposite of what we have been doing in the classroom with leveling students.     

This image from the video says it all!

This study found that prior knowledge/background knowledge creates a scaffolding for information. Knowledge counts in understanding and comprehending a text.  

This post from Amplify Blog explains the study in a bit more detail. 

So we know background knowledge is important for comprehending what is being read. How do we increase it for our students?

I LOVE this blog post from We Are Teachers!  So many good ideas to help increase background knowledge through classroom lessons. 

A couple of my favorites from this post are:

#1 Connect with virtual experts: I have had sled dog mushers, bee farmers, turkey farmers, chefs and so many other guests come to my classroom to extend on our learning.  

#5 Integrate: Bring science and social studies into your reading block!  Pair your fiction books with nonfiction books to build background knowledge.  

#7 Don't Skip the Back Matter: I LOVE author studies!  It is so powerful to then transfer the author's writing style into your writing lesson.

#15 A little video goes a long way: For us this is easy with our 1:1 technology.  

Know that because you are taking the time to build background knowledge for your students, they will be able to distinguish between words with multiple meaning & infer with ease.  EL students will benefit when faced with idioms, metaphors and other literacy devices that rely on background knowledge.  

I am so excited for our discussion in PLC!