Building Background Knowledge and Vocabulary

Essential Question…• How do I think about, plan, and deliver

instruction so that students can learn it faster and keep it longer?

Robert Marzano• Learning new content is strongly

correlated to students’ background knowledge about a subject.

• Background knowledge is a predictor of success in school.

Know – Want to Know – LearnKnow Want to Know Learned

Strategies to Build Background Knowledge• Picture Walks• Advanced Organizers• Using Picture Books• Tea Party Strategy• Word Webs• List, Group, Label• Rate Your Knowledge• Predicting ABCs• Wordsplash

Picture Walks• Scan picture books• Looking for patterns, features• Record notes• Unknown vocabulary• Discuss observations

Advanced Organizers• Graphic Organizers – perhaps the most

common way to help students generate nonlinguistic representations

• Combine linguistic mode in that they use words and phrases, and the nonlinguistic mode in that they use symbols and arrows to represent relationships

Using Picture Books• Particularly effective when the students

do not have background knowledge• Gives base information• Visuals are engaging• Make predictions

Picture Books• Casey Over There – World War I• The Butter Battle Book – Cold War• Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot – Berlin Airlift• Pie Biter – Transcontinental Railroad• Seaman’s Journal: On the Trail with Lewis and Clark – US

Expansion• George Did It – Setting the Precedent for the Presidency• The Great Migration – Migration of African Americans from the

South to the North, beginning around World War I

Tea Party Strategy• Engaging reading strategy – helps

students activate background knowledge, anticipate what the will read, make predictions before they read, and make connections to information

Word Webs• Visual organizers to help students build

background knowledge

American Indians

Shelter

Food MiscellaneousInformation

Clothing

Transportation

List, Group, Label• List essential words…• Categorize the words…• Defend categorize…

RateYour Knowledge• Graphic Organizer – used for prior

knowledge to assess students’ familiarity with words and give them a purpose for reading

• Builds confidence before reading because they recognize the words before beginning text

Predicting ABCs• Help students activate and build

background knowledge and make predictions about the content of the material they will be reading.

• Helps set a purpose for reading.

Wordsplash• Students make predictions about the text, make

connections among the words, and generates interest.– Students examine words and predict how the words are

related to one another and to the topic – Write statements showing relationships prior to reading.– Read the text and see if their predictions were accurate.– After reading, revise statements to include accurate

information.