Background Knowledge

PreReading Plan (PreP)

Drawing on students’ prior knowledge allows for increased comprehension. Students work cooperatively to activate background or previously known knowledge on the topic of the reading material before beginning to read.

Learning Tasks:

• View video and read the checklist of how to use the strategy.
• Do you think your students would like to “piggy back” off other students’ thoughts? If so, how does this strategy allow them to do so?
• Is there such a thing as “gaps” in knowledge? If so, how would you identify and expand on these gaps?

Discussion Questions:

• What is your background knowledge about the term “snake”? Could your students change their perception of “snakes” after participating in this activity?
• Now that you have learned the three steps to implementing or carrying out the PreP strategy in your classroom, imagine you have the ability to add a fourth step. What might that fourth step be as applied to utilizing the PreP in your classroom?

Story Impression Strategy

Story Impressions involve students’ first impressions or perceptions of a story. Using clues from the text, students create a story chain and write a paragraph predicting what they think will happen in the story.

Learning Tasks:

• List the directions to carry out this strategy with fidelity. List two practical ways this strategy can be used in a middle school classroom considering these directions.
• A teacher in a preschool classroom is attempting to implement this strategy in his classroom. What are two ways he can modify the strategy so that it is developmentally appropriate for the preschoolers’ levels?
• A high school chemistry teacher wants to implement this strategy in her teaching. Write a brief outline of how she could use this strategy in her chemistry class and include a sample Story Chain in your answer. Consider specific vocabulary that is likely to come up in a chemistry lesson.

Discussion Questions:

• Compare previewing a story in a different way with the Story Impression Strategy. Which method seems to interest you more? Why?
• What do you anticipate a challenge to incorporating this strategy into your instruction as being? Next, consider how to overcome the challenge(s) and list two ways the hurdle(s) can be removed.
• What surprised you about this strategy?