Building Background Knowledge
Students don't come to us as a blank slate, no matter what their age or their language. They come with many rich experiences and stories. Tapping into students' prior knowledge helps them find meaning in the content learning and linking to an experience can provide clarity and promote retention of the learning. Relating content to students' personal lives and experiences also serves the purpose of validating students' lives, culture and experiences.
This presentation offers some key strategies to link concepts to students' backgrounds and to link between past learning and new learning. Be sure to click on the hyperlinks embedded in the presentation.
Developing Key Vocabulary is also an essential part of building background knowledge. Vocabulary strategies can be found on the Vocabulary page.
Building Background Knowledge - Made with Clipchamp_1690409157182.mp4This is an excerpt from the What's SIOP? series.
The recording for the Vocabulary portion of this presentation can be found on the Vocabulary page.
Background Knowledge and ELLs: What Teachers Need to Know
(Lydia Breiseth 2021)
Identify key background knowledge needed for the lesson.
Identify students' existing background knowledge.
Build background knowledge students need.
Target background knowledge needed to understand texts.
Avoid assumptions.
Learning Guide 3 - Why is building background knowledge important for ELLs.pdf"Background knowledge is two-pronged: It's a cognitive task, as it is for all students, but it's also a cultural task. Cognitively, we know that new language is organized and retained when it is linked to prior schema. Culturally, ELLs are affected because they may not have the necessary cultural background knowledge to understand an English text." - (Dr. Joyce Purdy, 2017)