How important is accessing prior knowledge for students? (Baseball study) How do you immerse students in background knowledge or text sets to facilitate activation?
When the reader has knowledge about the subject to be read, comprehension is better and there are fewer errors in recall. We hypothesize that this results from an active interplay between the reader's cognitive structures that are relevant to the topic and the presentation of the topic in text (Anderson & Pearson, 1984)
The Baseball Study was important to look at to show that reading "ability" had less of a factor on comprehension than knowledge of the subject. This really shows the power of activating prior knowledge with text that you assign to students. Also, it helps them to actively engage in the reading, which is the goal of reading. Using an Anticipation Guide again would really work with my style of introducing text and help the students actively engage, especially in my small groups. I have always loved the Tea Party, but unfortunately have not used if for a few years. I will start this again, along with the KWL 2.0!
-Multiple exposures are important for retention and independence. How will you offer these opportunities?
Fortunately for me, I have a 90 minute block for instruction. This allows me ample time to teach, practice, reteach, practice etc. I will however, remind my students that the strategies I am teaching can be used with every subject, and encourage them to use it throughout their day in all subjects. I also have always encouraged active listening during my read aloud, and this gives the students another dose of these scaffolds.
-What strategies stuck out to you in this chapter and what ones and how will you bring them into your instruction?
I will say that I taught the "Notice and Note" fiction signposts for several years. I always wanted to start the nonfiction signposts as well. The only reason that I stopped teaching them was I could not confirm that all my students were "getting it" without my support. What I realize now is that it WAS an active, engaging strategy and I will go back to using it this school year. With most higher thinking models, it must be practiced "again and again" to gain traction and become more of a habit. I will most definitely incorporate the nonfiction signposts as well.