Background knowledge is essential for reading comprehension; the more you know about a topic, the easier it is to make sense of a text and retain the information. Children with very limited knowledge about the world will struggle more with reading comprehension than their peers who have a richer bank of knowledge and vocabulary. Browse the featured resources below to find out what you can do to build knowledge during the elementary years.
To comprehend a story or text, young readers need a threshold of knowledge about the topic, and new, tougher state standards place increasing demands on children's prior knowledge. This article offers practical classroom strategies to build background knowledge such as using contrasts and comparisons and encouraging topic-focused wide reading.
Learn about the importance of background knowledge for ELLs, as well as strategies for accessing and building students' background knowledge as part of lessons. (From our sister site, Colorín Colorado)
With this cooperative learning strategy, each student has a chance to become the expert in a topic and share their knowledge. Go inside Cathy Doyle's second grade classroom in Evanston, Illinois to observe her students use the jigsaw strategy to understand the topic of gardening more deeply and share what they have learned.
In this blog post, literacy expert Tim Shanahan shares recent research showing that teaching social studies and science units within the literacy block in grades K-4 can increase content knowledge and reading ability (including informational text reading skills and reading comprehension). Shanahan summarizes 7 insights and cautions to be drawn from these studies. For example: integrated instruction should do more than help students understand and remember facts — it should also teach kids to read more critically and build a deeper understanding of scientific and historical knowledge.
Literacy professor Dr. Nancy Frey talks about assessing background knowledge, the value of reading (independent and shared), how guest speakers in the classroom can help, and a warning about a “core set of knowledge.” Watch:Our full interview with Nancy Frey ›
Browse our themed booklists, video interviews, classroom activities, online history resources, and powerful documentaries. In our interviews, you’ll meet Kwame Alexander, Kekla Magoon, Rita Williams-Garcia, Kadir Nelson, Jacqueline Woodson, and many other brilliant book creators. And don’t miss our interview with Rudine Sims Bishop, author of the seminal essay, Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors. Celebrating and Learning About Black History and Culture ›
Valentine’s Day is a perfect opportunity to practice creative writing skills — and take a fresh look at poetry, figurative language, and word play. Browse our themed booklists and learn how to make different kinds of valentines (with children’s author Laura Elliott as our guide).
Children are naturally curious about the lives of real people and the world around them. And building background knowledge is key to children’s academic success. Our resources can help you find great nonfiction picture books and offer tips on how to get the most out of reading nonfiction. Nonfiction can sometimes turn a reluctant reader into an enthusiastic one!
It’s a great time for children’s nonfiction. In recent years, these books have evolved into five distinct categories. Learn more about the characteristics of traditional nonfiction, browse-able nonfiction, narrative nonfiction, expository literature, and active nonfiction.
Join us for an active afternoon where kids and volunteers come together around books and hands-on activities in this out-of-school-time reading program.
Do you know any young sleuths, adventure-seekers, or explorers? We've gathered up a great collection of books, activities, plus kid-friendly apps, podcasts, and websites for learning all about detectives and explorers. Make a spy periscope, create a cipher wheel, learn about geocaching, and more. From our companion site, Start with a Book.
Children learn when they make connections between what they hear and what they know. One way parents can help make these connections is called a think aloud, where you talk through your thoughts as you read. Here are three ways to use think alouds, with examples from some of our favorite kids’ books. (In English and Spanish, from our Growing Readers series)
Third grade teacher Chelsey Short shares three simple ideas to help your child understand what they read — break down the story into smaller pieces, give a reason or purpose for reading, and encourage your child to look back in the text for answers. She also has some suggestions for making this practice more fun!
See more Q&As about reading in our video series Reading SOS.
Find out how an elementary school in Sheridan, Wyoming transformed their literacy instruction from a balanced literacy approach to a structured literacy framework. Integrating systematic and explicit instruction resulted in improved reading and writing achievement for their students, and professional growth for all of the teachers.
In this blog post from teacher and literacy coach Margaret Goldberg, see how her shift to more effective literacy instruction led to more joy, motivation, and achievement for her students — and for her and her fellow teachers!
“Balanced Literacy has disseminated images of joyous classrooms and happy, nurturing educators for so long that it can be hard for teachers to visualize an appealing alternative. I might have made the shift away from Balanced Literacy sooner and with less trepidation, if I had been able to visualize how beautiful my classroom would become.”
In this overview from the “Reading Peaceniks,” learn how early literacy benefits from both print-to-speech and speech-to-print instruction, creating connections in the brain that link new knowledge about the alphabet to what children already know and are continuously learning about words.
Literacy expert Tim Shanahan addresses the strengths and gaps in Emily Hanford’s widely viewed “Sold a Story” podcast series.
“… if what you seek is the solution to the low literacy attainment problem that “Sold a Story” started with, then you had better be prepared to do a better job with those other needs that research has also identified. Our kids need high quality instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, text reading fluency, spelling, reading comprehension (both in terms of comprehension strategies and written language skills — vocabulary, syntax, cohesion, text/discourse structure), and writing. Indeed, our kids need to learn to read challenging literature and informational texts from the different disciplines in sophisticated ways, and they need to get used to using text for building extensive stores of knowledge about their social and natural worlds. That prescription is for a PreK-12 response, not a primary grade one. Our goal shouldn’t be better fourth grade readers, but more literate 12th grade readers.”
Reading Rockets is a national educational service of WETA, the flagship public television and radio station in the nation's capital. The goal of the project is to provide information on how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how caring adults can help.
Send your questions, comments, or suggestions to info@readingrockets.org. Our mailing address is WETA/Reading Rockets, 2775 S. Quincy St., Arlington, VA 22206. We look forward to hearing from you!
