3 Things to Know for Teaching Activating Prior Knowledge

Every day we gain more and more prior knowledge, and we use it constantly without even realizing it. It is one of those reading comprehension strategies that also transfers over into a real life skill.

Teaching activating prior knowledge is important because it does not always come naturally to kids. The little minds that we teach are so in the moment they do not think much beyond that. Right? Do your second graders also only think me me me now now now?

Getting your brain ready with prior knowledge is a habit that we can support our students in developing to use in reading and the world.

So let’s do this!

The 3 Things You Need to Know About Teaching Activating

What is it?!

Are you here because you know this is a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade comprehension strategy that you need to teach but are having trouble recalling exactly what it means? No problem, I got you!

Schema is a term used to refer to the information in our brain that helps us make meaning of what we are reading. Your schema is made up of your prior knowledge and your connections.

I personally define the difference between the two as prior knowledge is factual information that you know and connections (that you use in the reading strategy of making connections) is more experiences and feelings.

Picking Texts for Teaching Activating Prior Knowledge

You can really use any text to teach and practice activating prior knowledge. The biggest question to ask yourself is “Do my students have any prior knowledge about topics in this text?” It does not need to be a lot, just some background information!

I share a detailed list of my favorite mentor text read alouds and ideas how to use them in this blog post.

When picking topics to prompt students’ schema, look for nonfiction topics in:

• cover
• title
• 2-3 related topics in story

Wondering why I said nonfiction topics?

As I stated above, I use activating to think about facts and information. For example, in a fictional story about a farm, students can activate their prior knowledge about farms to help them better understand the story.

Have you used my Comprehension Crew curriculum? This is the newest member, Annie The Activator! Her ENTIRE lesson and activity pack is free for members of my Facebook group.

Annie is a safari explorer. As part of Annie’s explorer job, she needs to learn about animals so when she is exploring on a safari she can use what she knows to find the animals in nature.

Readers activate their prior knowledge by thinking of what information they already know about a topic. Good readers activate their background knowledge before and during reading to best understand the book.

Join my Facebook group, Reading Comprehension Crew, to access this huge pack of resources.

Reading Lesson and Activities Ideas

Before Reading

Tell students the topics or topic they will read about. You can be really general or very specific depends on your group of learners.

Brainstorm words, images, or facts that come to mind about a topic- with a brain dump, KWL chart, or word web on a paper or a discussion with a partner or small group.

Students should think about:

• Where have I seen this topic before?
• What do I know about this topic?
• What images come to mind about this topic?

During Reading

Add to the brainstorming as more information comes to mind from details that are read.

Students can benefit from graphic organizers and prompts to keep track of the ideas.

Encourage students to make stars or underline information that they recalled before reading as it is mentioned in the text. This helps to reinforce why activating helps them to comprehend fuller.

All of this and more is available in the free Annie the Activator resource! It is an exclusive freebie for members of my Reading Comprehension Crew Facebook Group!

After Reading

Discuss what information about the topic that the students knew related to the text and what didn’t. Talk about questions they still have and how their knowledge helped them to understand.

Free Real Life Comprehension Activity

Try out this concrete activity to help students understand what prior knowledge is and how it can be used in real life! I call these concrete mini lessons!

This is directly from the newest Comprehension Crew character resource- Annie the Activator.

Have a picture of a popular movie, book or show that students are familiar with on the board. This can be something recent or a classic story that you know they will know.

Tell students that you are going to watch the sequel, but you forget what happened. You can ask them questions about things that you should obviously know from the first movie or ask them to help remind you.

Example Guiding Questions:.

• What type of creature is ____?
• How are ___ and ___ related?
• Where does the story take place?
• Do those two characters know each other?
• Why do they feel ___ way about each other? You want to guide students in realizing that the information they know from the first movie helps them to understand situations better.

Want to know more about activating prior knowledge? Check out these links:

Mentor Texts for Teaching Activating

Free Annie the Activator Resource