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Students with background knowledge of a topic can better understand texts even if they have poor reading skills. When we are looking to improve reading comprehensions we will get better results if we teach the foundational knowledge of a topic as a basis for understanding texts, than if we try and teach generic reading comprehension skills such as "finding the main idea". Explicitly teaching the foundational and contextual knowledge that students need to access a topic is an equity stratgey. Students who comes from homes where they are exposed to general knowledge have an advantage. Teaching background knowledge can help level the playing field.
Just in case you feel that these days students can just google background knowledge - please read this:
"There is a consensus in cognitive psychology that it takes knowledge to gain knowledge.Those who repudiate a fact-filled curriculum on the grounds that kids can always look things up miss the paradox that de-emphasizing factual knowledge actually disables children from looking things up effectively. To stress process at the expense of factual knowledge actually hinders children from learning to learn.Yes, the Internet has placed a wealth of information at our fingertips. But to be able to use that information—to absorb it, to add to our knowledge—we must already possess a storehouse of knowledge.That is the paradox disclosed by cognitive research. "
https://daisychristodoulou.com/2012/01/why-you-cant-just-google-it/
Two key strategies for building knowledge - Advance organisers based on the theory of meaningful learning and knowledge Organisers based on cognitive load theory.
Advance Organisers
Advance Organisers
The purpose of these is to find out what students already know and what questions they have. This enable teachers to make connections between new content and what students already have in their long term memory. This process makes new learning more likely to stick.
"The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly" (Ausubel, 1968, vi).
Knowledge Organisers
Knowledge Organisers
The purpose of these is to provide students with the academic language relevant to the topic, the background/general knowledge that helps them contextualise the new learning and some key facts that students can commit to memory as the foundation for their new learning. This strategy is a way of levelling the playing field between students who have excellent general knowledge and those who don't.
“The reason experts remember more is that what novices see as separate pieces of information, experts see as organized sets of ideas.” (Donovan & Bransford, 2005 )
Advance Organiser Concept
Advance Organiser Concept
Knowledge Map Concept
Knowledge Map Concept
Research Evidence Base
Research Evidence Base
"There appears to be to be a tradeoff between knowledge and general reading ability at this age; a child with a strong knowledgebase can compensate to some extent for poor reading skill, and a child with strong reading skill can compensate to some extent for deficiencies in knowledge ."
'You Can Always Look It Up' ... or Can You? By E.D. Hirsch, Jr.
American Educator, Spring 2000
https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/LookItUpSpring2000.pdf
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