Background knowledge is essential for reading comprehension; the more you know about a topic, the easier it is to read a text, make sense of it, and retain the information. Children with very limited knowledge about the world will struggle more with reading comprehension than their peers who have a richer bank of knowledge (and vocabulary) about the world. Browse the featured resources below to find out what teachers and parents can do to build knowledge during the elementary years.
To comprehend a story or text, young readers need a threshold of knowledge about the topic, and new, tougher state standards place increasing demands on children's prior knowledge. This article offers practical classroom strategies to build background knowledge such as using contrasts and comparisons and encouraging topic-focused wide reading.
Teachers need to support students' ability to understand complex text (let kids read all the good stuff) and build all-important background knowledge. Teachers also deserve access to high-quality curriculum materials — a thoughtfully arranged, comprehensive, sequential curriculum that embeds standards, the science of reading, and key instructional shifts.
ELLs of diverse backgrounds may struggle to grasp content and may approach the content from very different perspectives. Drawing on your students' background knowledge and experiences, can be an effective way to bridge gaps and to make the content more accessible. This article offers a number of suggestions to classroom teachers as they find ways to tap into the background knowledge that students bring with them.
Concepts of print need to be expanded to include graphics, with instruction in how to read and analyze graphical devices such as diagrams, timelines, and tables. Learn more about how to teach young students to read and understand visual information.
Children are naturally curious about the lives of real people and the world around them. And building background knowledge is key to children's academic success. Our resources can help you find great nonfiction picture books and offer tips on how to get the most out of reading nonfiction. Nonfiction can sometimes turn a reluctant reader into an enthusiastic one!
Start with a Book What does your child love to explore and learn about? At our companion project, Start with a Book, you can dig into dinosaurs, bugs, birds, planes, music, sports, superheroes, inventors, art, stars and planets, the ocean, and more — 24 kid-friendly topics in all (plus tips on reading aloud and ideas for writing). For each topic, you'll find hundreds of recommended books, hands-on activities, educational websites, and interactive apps to deepen the learning.
Start with a Book has just been selected as a 2020 Parents’ Choice Silver Award winner! “A wealth of information and inspiration in one place, Start with a Book is a one stop shop for learning.” Check us out!
Adventures in Summer Learning: The Home Front Meet Wendy Bostic, a mother of two young children in Washington, D.C., who knows that taking a vacation from school doesn't have to be a vacation from learning. She makes a conscious effort to keep her two young children engaged — with reading, regular trips to the library, and exploring the world around them through local field trips.
Kadir Nelson is a gifted artist whose extraordinary talent continues to be celebrated — by young readers, teachers, the American Library Association awards committees, literacy organizations, and many others in the world of children's books. In January, he won the Caldecott Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award for his powerful illustrations in The Undefeated.
Many of his earlier books have also been honored, including We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, and Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad. Nelson says, “…when it comes to the artwork that I do, I'm telling human stories, and they're essentially human truths.”
Listen in to our conversation with the 2017 Winner of the Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. Dr. Bishop talks about why kids need to see all kinds of people and cultures in the books they read, filling classroom libraries with diverse books to read all year round, celebrating children through poetry, and more.
More interviews with awesome children’s book authors:
In this new collection of picture books, learn about the winter solstice, read a pourquoi story about where snowflakes come from, follow the footprints of the beautiful snow leopard, race through the city on a zippy snow plow with a father and daughter, take a quiet walk through the city in the snow, and more wintry reads.
Since the very first celebration in 1998, NEA’s Read Across America has generated enthusiasm for reading nationwide, raised public awareness for children’s literacy, and supported educators, parents, and others in their ongoing efforts to motivate kids to read. This year, NEA offers new resources for March 2 and year-round activities that “Celebrate a Nation of Diverse Readers.” It’s time to start thinking about which great books you’re going to share on March 2 and plan your reading celebration! Resources and recommendations abound in this new blog post.
Children learn when they make connections between what they hear and what they know. One way parents can help make these connections is called a think aloud, where you talk through your thoughts as you read. Here are three ways to use think alouds, with examples from some of our favorite kids' books. [In English and Spanish]
Do you know any kids who are fascinated by dinosaurs (and think that T-Rex rules)? We do! And we've gathered up a great collection of books, activities, apps, and websites for learning all about dinosaurs. Try pairing fiction with nonfiction books and exploring different genres (like poetry) and formats (like graphic novels and audio books). Reading widely in this way helps children build background knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.
Hands-on measurement activities are fun to explore with children. Introduce your young learner to these interesting new vocabulary words and knowledge, and help your child develop an early love of measuring everything in sight! [In English and Spanish]
Special literacy events and celebrations can be a great way to get kids excited about books and reading. But for kids who struggle with reading, these kinds of events can challenge their self-confidence. Here are 15 strategies to help you plan a successful, joyful reading event for all kinds of readers and learners.
From literacy expert Tim Shanahan: Our problem in reading isn’t that nothing works. It’s that everything does. The U.S. is a highly literate nation. Almost all of us can read — no matter how we’ve been taught. But we’ve constructed a society around literacy. Reading is deeply implicated in our academic, economic, civic, and social lives. Achieving the levels of reading that we have in the past is insufficient. Our teachers have done well, but if today’s boys and girls only read as well as students did a decade ago, they’re being disadvantaged. We need to acknowledge both the current successes and the need to do better.
Try our self-paced online professional development course! A quick pre-test gauges your knowledge. Learn more about what good readers do — draw on prior knowledge, draw on inferences, self-monitor, summarize and retell — and how to build these skills in the classroom. Finish up with a confidence-boosting post-test strategy.
Reading Rockets is a national educational service of WETA, the flagship public television and radio station in the nation's capital. The goal of the project is to provide information on how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how caring adults can help. Reading Rockets is supported in part by the Poses Family Foundation and Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes.
Send your questions, comments, or suggestions to readingrockets@weta.org. Our mailing address is WETA/Reading Rockets, 2775 S. Quincy St., Arlington, VA 22206. We look forward to hearing from you!
