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Reading Comprehension Strategy One

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Johnny Navarro
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33 views2 pages

Reading Comprehension Strategy One

Uploaded by

Johnny Navarro
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Reading Comprehension Strategy One:

Activating or Building Background Knowledge

When I was young in the mountains, I never wanted to go to the


ocean, and I never wanted to go to the desert. I never wanted to go
anywhere else in the world, for I was in the mountains. And that
was always enough.

—From When I Was Young in the Mountains,


by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Diane Goode

Before we open a book, link to a website, or sit down in


a movie theater or in front of the TV, our adult minds begin
to activate what we already know, think, or believe about the
topic of the literacy event we are about to enter. We developed
this skill over the course of many years of meeting and greeting
new experiences. Our brains seek out patterns; our thinking
involves making connections. Understanding the importance
of background knowledge to comprehension is critical because
we connect new information with prior knowledge before we
integrate and organize the new information. Like the elephant’s
tail, background knowledge is always behind us backing up our
comprehension. It is the sum of the prior experiences we bring
to each new encounter with text.
Rosenblatt (1978) developed a theory of reading as a transaction among the reader, the text, and the
intention of the author. She posited that each reader brings his own feelings, personality, and
experiences to the text and that each reader is different each time he revisits a particular text.
Background knowledge is what the reader brings to the reading event. Each reader’s interpretation
and each reading of the text are potentially unique. This theory helps explain our individual
responses to literature, art, and music and can be applied more broadly to our generalized responses
in all areas of learning.
As we go through life meeting and revisiting ideas and information, we orga nize our
understandings into schemas. According to McGee and Richgels, a schema is a “mental structure in
which we store all the information we know about people, places, objects, or activities” (1996, 5). If
we have no schema for a particular topic, we begin that encounter with an immediate loss of
comprehension, as the following incident clearly shows.

Collaborative Strategiesfor Teaching ReadingComprehension – Moreillon, J. AMERICAN LIBRARY


ASSOCIATION. Chicago 2007
These students did not have contextual background
because they had never visited the Grand Canyon, and they
did not have decontextualized book knowledge because they
had not yet read or viewed a film about the place or the
experience of riding a mule down its steep slopes.
Keene and Zimmermann (1997) liken schemas
to “homes in the mind.” This metaphor helps educators
think in terms of the necessity of familiarity and comfort
with a topic if the reader is to be successful at making
meaning. By assessing students’ schemas and activating or
building background knowledge, they offer students critical
support for comprehension.
Educators cannot assume that students have prior
experiences with any school-based domains.
Introducing lessons and units of study with brainstorms
and questions about what prior ideas and information
children possess on particular topics is an essential
component of lesson design. In order to find a firm starting
point for student learning, educators often utilize K-W-L
charts, or some variation of this tool, to help the class or
individual students assess their background knowledge.

Extending the K-W-L chart allows for the possibility that educators will need to help students
build their background knowledge before identifying what they already know and want to learn:

• Build background.
• What do we already know?
• What do we wonder about?
• What did we learn?
• What are our new questions?

This B-K-W-L-Q chart, based on the work of Janet Allen (2004), also acknowledges that inquiring is
a dynamic process that can generate as many questions as it answers.
We can also think of background knowledge as learned understandings about specific domains.
Background knowledge becomes part of what some researchers call “crystallized intelligence.” This type
of intelligence is associated with facts, generalizations, and principles. “The strong correlation between
crystallized intelligence and academic achievement helps to explain the strong relationship between
background knowledge (or ‘prior knowledge’ in some studies) and achievement” (Marzano 2003, 134).

If we attempt to read or write in a domain for which we have no prior knowledge, we struggle with
comprehension. Readers need the support of schemas as they encounter new ideas and information.
By explicitly modeling and practicing prior knowledge assessment, educators can help students
develop their own procedures for assessing their background knowledge before they begin explorations
into new learning territories. They can help children determine what they already know or if
they need to build their background knowledge before they begin. If students determine that they
need more prior knowledge, educators should give them time to build it before encountering a new
concept. They can also provide students with background knowledge as a means of demonstrating
the critical importance of these understandings to reading comprehension. When explicitly taught,
this strategy provides children with both the rationale and the experience of utilizing background
knowledge to support effective reading.

Collaborative Strategiesfor Teaching ReadingComprehension – Moreillon, J. AMERICAN LIBRARY


ASSOCIATION. Chicago 2007

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