Discussion #2: Activating and Connecting to Background Knowledge


"When we begin strategy instruction with children, stories close to their own lives and experiences are helpful for introducing new ways of thinking about reading." (Goudvis and Harvey 92)  In order to help students build background knowledge and to help them make connections, I like to use picture books.  Most of the books that I pick are realistic fiction and memoirs.  Before reading this chapter, I would mention the word "connections," but now I can see how I need to go further than that.  I can see how I can make better use of the connections they are making with the text.

One of the strategies I would like to try in my classroom is having students use the phrase "It reminds me of..."  Students could turn and talk to a buddy/partner about what the story reminds them of.  Then, I could chart their thinking on chart paper.  I believe that having the students actually see me write the information on the paper would be very meaningful to students.  They could actually see if in a much more concrete sense.  Later on in the year, I could divide the chart into two columns, one column for what the story is about and the other for what it reminds them of.  This directly shows their personal connections to the specific part in the story. 

"If we are going to teach our kids to make connections as they read, we must teach them about a type of connection that we have come to call the distracting connection."  (Goudvis and Harvey 95)  This section really reminded me of my kindergarteners and where they are at right now in their connection making skills.  For example, one of my students read a story and got stuck on the name of a character.  Her mom had a friend of the same name, and she was unable to add any details about the story other than the connection that her mother had a friend with the same name.  This seems to be pretty common for kindergarteners.  I would like to model someone having a distracting connection, and then helping them to see how to overcome it.  Because kindergarteners are so young, it is important to get them focus on their comprehension even when distracted. 

I also love the Building Background Knowledge to Teach Specific Content Strategy. p 99
When starting a unit on Africa, the teacher from the text realized that her students had very little background knowledge.  They went to the library, looked at photographs, and asked a lot of questions.  Whenever students asked a question, she wrote it down on a post-it note.  She also kept track of all that they had learned.  After much discussion, she had students write down a fact and draw a picture.  This is definitely a strategy that is appropriate for my kindergarteners.