Background Knowledge
A great way to get students to become excited about a text is to activate their background knowledge. Background knowledge is previous knowledge that a student has about a specific subject.
There are several different ways to activate a student's background knowledge. Three of these are listed and described below.
Anticipation guides - Used before reading content-area textbooks and other informational books. List of statements about the topic chosen by the teacher for the students to discuss prior to reading. This might look like 4-5 small groups of children discussing the different statements with one another creating/sharing their feelings/views on that specific topic. Found on pages 4428-429 in Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach by Gail Tompkins.
Taken from: http://interactive-notebooks.wikispaces.com/file/detail/AnticipationGuide.gif
Exclusion brainstorming - Used for social studies or science before reading the text(s). A list of words is presented to the students and the students decide which words are not related to the topic. The students then read the text and look back over the words and see if they chose wisely. This could be done using a simple sheet of paper with a list of words on it. Students will more than likely do this task individually, however, they could work in small groups of 2-3. Found on page 435 in Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach by Gail Tompkins.
K-W-L charts - This is used during thematic units about a specific topic in order to scaffold the students' learning. Their thoughts are organized into 3 different categories: K (things the student already knows about the topic), W (things the student wants to find out about the topic), and L (things the student learned after the lesson). Many times the students create their own chart on a piece of notebook paper, however, the teacher can design a chart for the students. Found on pages 441-443 in Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach by Gail Tompkins.
Taken from: http://my-ecoach.com/online/resources/5755/kwl.gif
These 3 ways are not the only ways to activate background knowledge. There are countless ways to do this. Be creative.
Activating background knowledge should be used prior to every lesson. This is an excellent way to scaffold students' learning. With background knowledge, students are able to relate the new subject matter with things they already know about which allows the learning process to be much easier for the students and on the teacher as well.