Dana Cook

2/13/03

Edrg. 4020

Pre-Reading Strategies to Activate & Build Prior Knowledge

~For students are having struggles with reading, activating and building previous knowledge before stepping into text is helpful. The process involves getting the students involved and excited for the upcoming text and it also makes a connection between previous knowledge and the main ideas of the text.

~The teacher should be familiar with the text in order to help students have a better understanding of the materials being introduced.

~Some steps to consider before doing activity:

· What vocabulary must be presented before the reading? (Will words be understandable within the context)

· Can real objects be used to build students’ background knowledge before reading the story? (ie. Videos, photographs, picture books, etc.)

· The sequence should be no more than 15 minutes

· Active learning is more effective in building background knowledge.

Some Pre-Reading Activities

Ø Anticipation Guides: A list of statements with which the students are asked to agree or disagree. The statements are related to concepts, issues, or attitudes presented in the reading selection. Usually three to six statements just to get the students thinking. This activity leads to a discussion and debate between the students’ different ideas.

Ø Opinionaires/Questionaires: Useful tool for helping readers examine their own values, attitudes, opinions, or related experiences before reading the book. Much like constructing an anticipation guide. Purpose is to help with students’ thinking about their own attitudes and experiences related to the text.

Ø Book boxes: A book box is a unique way of presenting students with actual materials that will be in the book. You put items in a box that will be the key points in the book. You have the students guess and try to figure out what will happen with the objects as you present them. This gets the students paying attention to see if they guessed right about the items found in the box.

Ø Book Bits: These activities are a lot like book boxes other than instead of sharing items you share pieces of information from the book. You go through the book and pick out phrases dealing with the book without giving the entire idea of the book.

Ø Contrast Charts: This is a tool used to get students thinking about certain areas in the book before encountering them in the story. They are very easy to develop by only having the teacher identify theme related contrasting categories with which students can list ideas.

Ø Semantic Mapping/KWL Charts: These are graphic displays of categorized information. You pick a main idea with map and then you branch off of the map with ideas. Students brainstorm and record their own subordinate ideas related to the main idea.