KAITLIN BARNES
APPLYING PAST KNOWLEDGE TO NEW SITUATIONS
Accessing prior knowledge; transferring knowledge beyond the situation in which it was learned
Applying past knowledge to new situations is important in all content areas because it allows students to bring their own knowledge and experiences to the learning environment, thereby making the academic content more meaningful to them. However, this Habit and Mindset is particularly important in a reading classroom because activating background knowledge allows students to make personal connections to the material, which increases comprehension and academic performance. Research has shown that a student's ability to understand a new text is not only based on their reading ability and linguistic knowledge, but also on their general understanding of the topic at hand, and whether or not that past knowledge is activated prior to reading (Carrell, 1983). Teaching students how to think about their past knowledge and experiences and apply it to an unfamiliar text is a strategy that will help students be able to comprehend increasingly difficult texts independently.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Teacher Reflection and References
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The first reading skill that I teach my students each year is how to make deep and meaningful connections. Making connections is important in a reading classroom because students comprehend more when they have a personal understanding of what the text is discussing. By activating their background knowledge and connecting a new text to themselves, another text, or something they have seen on the news, students are more likely to be engaged in the text and understand what it is saying.
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Students begin learning about how to activate their background knowledge by adding several pages to their interactive notebooks. These notes serve as a resources for us to refer back to throughout the year. In addition, the sentence stems help my students articulate their connections in a more coherent way. These stems are particularly important for my English Language Learners and my students who receive special education services. Students also learn about the difference between surface and deep connections. We discuss how we can turn surface connections (such as, "Zane has a dog, and so do I") into deep and meaningful connections by focused on shared thoughts and feelings that stem from different experiences. Starting the year by learning about connections allows students to use this skill with each book that they read, both individually as a class. Because we all practice making deep connections to our books, students are able to connect our class novels to one another by focusing on the thoughts and feelings that the different characters share. This enhances their enjoyment of and understanding of the novels, especially for students who may have found these books inaccessible if they were to read them on their own.
Having a variety of sentence stems available in their reading notebooks makes it easy for students to articulate their connections in a more academic manner.
As we discussed the differences between surface and deep connections, students took notes about what differentiated one from the other. We also created an example together to refer back to throughout the year.
I also have several connections-related anchor charts to provide a more obvious visual reminder for students to activate their background knowledge when approaching a new text.
In addition to teaching students how to apply their past knowledge and experiences to new texts, I also have students activate their background knowledge when we are reading non-fiction texts. During our non-fiction unit, I bring in texts that are related to either (a) our class novels, or (b) a current event. I find that using these types of texts makes it easier for students to understand the texts because they are able to use their background knowledge about the topic that they have gained from either our read-aloud or from what they have heard outside of school, such as on the news or from their family.
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When using these types of texts, I always make a point to ask students for their own opinion before reading. Doing so gives students a chance to activate their background knowledge, even though that knowledge may come from different places. Asking students for their own opinions also increases engagement, because the students are more invested in the learning when they feel like they can connect it to their own lives.
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We recently read an article about the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Students had a chance to provide their own idea related to this topic.
When reading about the pros and cons of virtual schools, students had a chance to explain their own opinions. By placing it on a t-chart, students could see how many of their classmates were for, against, or neutral on this topic.
Before beginning our class novel Making Bombs for Hitler, students participated in a gallery walk that included several excerpts from non-fiction texts about the Holocaust and World War II. This activity tied in with our study of text features, as students were identifying what text features were present and what they helped the reader understand. The gallery walk also helped activate student background knowledge about the Holocaust and got them thinking about what questions they had. These questions were collected on a collaborative anchor chart that was displayed as we read the novel, and students realized that we were able to answer many of their questions as we read the book and related texts.
Students worked with partners to participate in the gallery walk. This image shows a pair of students analyzing a picture. Other stations showed glossary pages, maps, and graphs.
Student questions were gathered and displayed on this anchor chart.
As students rotated to each text feature, they jotted down what they were looking at. At the bottom, they explained how it made them feel or a question they had. Because this activity was completed before we began reading our class novel, it was a chance for students to activate any background knowledge they had on this topic, and it ensured that all students had at exposure to at least six pieces of background knowledge that they could refer back to during our read-aloud.
I also incorporate activating background knowledge into my social studies instruction whenever possible. Because students have had very little social studies coursework prior to fifth grade, I design activities that give students exposure to primary historical sources that we can refer back to through a unit. During our unit about slavery and the Civil War, I had my students participate in a similar type of gallery walk to examine primary sources such as posters, illustrations, and artifacts used when slavery was legal in America. Because many of them had never studied slavery or the Civil War in-depth before, this activity helped them understand the seriousness of the topic and it made the history more real and meaningful for them. Throughout our unit, whenever we would come across one of the artifacts included in the gallery walk in our textbook or online, students would get excited about recognizing a historical artifact and having prior knowledge of it.
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These two artifacts were included in the slavery gallery walk. The poster on the left helped students understand how long slavery had been in America, while the shackles on the right helped them begin to comprehend how slaves were mistreated and tortured.
Like the Holocaust gallery walk, students completed a sheet as they rotated to each of the primary sources. Students reflected on what they were looking at and asked to make reasonable inferences about what the different artifacts meant. At the bottom, students could reflect on what questions they had or how they felt about what they were looking at. The questions students jotted down help me see what students were curious in learning more about and I was able to tailor my future instruction to accommodate student interests.
TEACHER REFLECTION AND REFERENCES
Since restructuring my unit plans to include my connections lesson first, I have found that students are able to think more deeply about the texts they are reading both as a class and independently. Teaching students how to activate their background knowledge and apply it to a new text has resulted in increased comprehension and more meaningful discussion about texts. Now, whenever we begin a new class novel, we pause about a third of the way through our reading to make connections to other novels we have read together. Doing so strengthens students' understanding of the rest of the text, and gives them continuous practice with the important reading skills of thinking about characters, themes, and plots. I have also noticed an increase in engagement and comprehension since implementing background knowledge activities into my non-fiction units and social studies lessons. Because they begin these units by looking at pictures, graphs, or artifacts, students have a working knowledge to connect their new learning back to.
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Carrell, P. (1983, June). Three components of background knowledge in reading comprehension. Language Learning: A Journal of Research in Language Studies, 33(2), 183-203. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1983.tb00534.x