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How can teachers plan literacy instruction to support students with varying levels of background knowledge?

Raising Hands

"A person's background knowledge is a collection of 'abstracted residue' that has been formed from all of life's experiences. We all... bring diverse bits of background knowledge - consciously or subconsciously - to every subsequent experience, and we use them to connect or glue new information to old."

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- Lent (2012), Overcoming Textbook Fatigue

Abstract:

 

In order for reading comprehension to occur, students must be involved in the process of making meaning from text. Rosenblatt's (1988) Transactional Theory claims that this transaction between the reader and the written word is highly impacted by the reader's knowledge and experience. In other words, a reader's background knowledge is a crucial component of comprehension and the learning process. Each student enters the classroom with his or her own set of experiences which can positively or negatively impact his or her ability to apply information to a text. For example, when studying about ocean life in science, some students can activate their prior knowledge from a beach trip or hands-on experience at an aquarium, some may recall information from books they have read at the library about this topic, while other students may not have any firsthand experience of the ocean or marine life. Those students who have had a prior experience are equipped with a greater readiness to unlock meaning from the text. I believe they are also more likely to have an invested interest and emotional response during the learning process, as well. The challenge comes for those students with little to no background knowledge, as they do not have the same depth of understanding; therefore, a discrepancy forms between students in the same class looking at the same text.

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Rationale:

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I chose to research the impact of background knowledge on students' learning because my teaching experience has awakened me to this challenge regarding background knowledge: the playing field is not equal for all students. I've seen varying levels of background knowledge impact the following: students' willingness to take ownership of learning, their ability to understand new concepts, their vocabulary knowledge, and their interest in certain texts or topics. I have seen firsthand how a student's lack of background knowledge can impact him or her negatively in the aforementioned areas, and I want to continually improve my literacy instruction by researching strategies that will benefit students with varying levels of background knowledge. The research and findings included in this website are a result of my past two years of study within the NLGL program at N.C. State and my experinece as a teacher of literacy in my second grade classroom. It is my hope that the research and effective strategies I've included on this site can be a helpful resource to other educators, as well.

CONSIDER THIS:

How does background knowledge come into play as you look at this image? How does your experience shape both your knowledge and emotional response regarding this picture?

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