BUILDING BACKGROUND
Building background or accessing prior knowledge is important for any student. It helps students to make sense of things. If they lack prior knowledge then we need to provide interventions. There are three major interventions that should be used: 1) Teach vocabulary before they read, 2) Provide the students with experiences. and 3) introduce a framework that will help them develop background information.
Activating prior knowledge or building background can be done by reading a story, play, or article about the topic, watching a video, showing pictures, brainstorming, discussions, or quick-writes.
To help build vocabulary a teacher could have a word wall, play vocabulary games, or use cloze sentences and students could have personal dictionaries, use a concept map, self-select vocabulary, or have word study books.
One of the best ways to help teach vocabulary is to use realia, photos, and illustrations. A K-W-L chart is a common concept teachers tend to use. The students could also take a pretest.
Here are some other activities with descriptions that could also be used:
Backwards book walk-before students read they look at the text backward-starting with the conclusion and then continuing backward to look at captions, headings, and keywords. This helps them get an idea of what the text is about. Another way to do the book walk is to go to the end of the chapter, go through the sentences backwards, and write down any unfamiliar vocabulary words down. In this way the students are able to learn words that are unfamiliar with them before they read.
Go to Your Corner-There are also different ways to do this activity. One way is to select a topic and then have four areas in that topic (one in each corner). Students go to that corner based on a word they have or based on interest and then they pair with a partner that is in their corner and discuss or share their reasoning. It could also be used as an opinion based on things that are read out loud and they have to justify their answer. The teacher would read a sentence or question and they would go to their corner-strongly agree, neutral, strongly disagree, 50/50 and then justify with a partner why they chose that corner.
The Insert Method-Students read an article with a partner and code it. They use a checkmark if it is something they already know, a question mark is used if something is confusing, an exclamation mark is something that is new or surprising, and a plus sign is a concept or idea that is new to the reader.
Student Journals-Students can build on their previous writing. First they write down their background knowledge, read a certain topic, and then go back, reflect, and build on what they previously wrote.
Personal Dictionaries-Students write down words they come across in their reading that they are not familiar with or it can be specific content vocabulary. The dictionaries can be categorized in many ways. It is a resource that they can keep going back to.
Signal Words-This is a difficult concept for many ELL students. Posters could be made with different text structure and the words that would be used for that structure or based on the writing process.
4 Corners Vocabulary-a piece of paper is folded into four boxes or lines drawn to create the four boxes. In the first box the student writes the vocabulary word, the second box is an illustration, the third box contains the definition, and the last box a sentence using the word in context. You could also you the Frayer Model.
Cognates-Many languages have cognates (word related in meaning and form to another word in another language). Spanish and English have many cognates. Using cognates helps ELLs learn their L2 quicker because it is very similar to their L1. (e.g. artifact/artefacto)
Cues and Questions-Use these to help student's retrieve and use what they already know about a topic. Focus on what is important, use high level thinking questions, and give significant wait time.
Activating prior knowledge or building background can be done by reading a story, play, or article about the topic, watching a video, showing pictures, brainstorming, discussions, or quick-writes.
To help build vocabulary a teacher could have a word wall, play vocabulary games, or use cloze sentences and students could have personal dictionaries, use a concept map, self-select vocabulary, or have word study books.
One of the best ways to help teach vocabulary is to use realia, photos, and illustrations. A K-W-L chart is a common concept teachers tend to use. The students could also take a pretest.
Here are some other activities with descriptions that could also be used:
Backwards book walk-before students read they look at the text backward-starting with the conclusion and then continuing backward to look at captions, headings, and keywords. This helps them get an idea of what the text is about. Another way to do the book walk is to go to the end of the chapter, go through the sentences backwards, and write down any unfamiliar vocabulary words down. In this way the students are able to learn words that are unfamiliar with them before they read.
Go to Your Corner-There are also different ways to do this activity. One way is to select a topic and then have four areas in that topic (one in each corner). Students go to that corner based on a word they have or based on interest and then they pair with a partner that is in their corner and discuss or share their reasoning. It could also be used as an opinion based on things that are read out loud and they have to justify their answer. The teacher would read a sentence or question and they would go to their corner-strongly agree, neutral, strongly disagree, 50/50 and then justify with a partner why they chose that corner.
The Insert Method-Students read an article with a partner and code it. They use a checkmark if it is something they already know, a question mark is used if something is confusing, an exclamation mark is something that is new or surprising, and a plus sign is a concept or idea that is new to the reader.
Student Journals-Students can build on their previous writing. First they write down their background knowledge, read a certain topic, and then go back, reflect, and build on what they previously wrote.
Personal Dictionaries-Students write down words they come across in their reading that they are not familiar with or it can be specific content vocabulary. The dictionaries can be categorized in many ways. It is a resource that they can keep going back to.
Signal Words-This is a difficult concept for many ELL students. Posters could be made with different text structure and the words that would be used for that structure or based on the writing process.
4 Corners Vocabulary-a piece of paper is folded into four boxes or lines drawn to create the four boxes. In the first box the student writes the vocabulary word, the second box is an illustration, the third box contains the definition, and the last box a sentence using the word in context. You could also you the Frayer Model.
Cognates-Many languages have cognates (word related in meaning and form to another word in another language). Spanish and English have many cognates. Using cognates helps ELLs learn their L2 quicker because it is very similar to their L1. (e.g. artifact/artefacto)
Cues and Questions-Use these to help student's retrieve and use what they already know about a topic. Focus on what is important, use high level thinking questions, and give significant wait time.