Squema

Activating and Building Schema


Readers
▪ Activate relevant prior knowledge before, during, and after reading
▪ Decide it they need additional background information about the topic, format, or language of the text they will be reading
▪ Use their schema to enhance their understandings and to provide a framework for learning new information
▪ Add to / change their schema as theydiscover new ideas and / or information in their reading

Pearson, Dole, Roeler, and Duffy say, “Reading is a process of actively constructing of meaning and connecting prior knowledge with new information.”

There are three kinds of prior knowledge or schema:
- Specific knowledge about topic of the text
- General world knowledge about social relationships and casual structures
-Knowledge about the text’s organization (genre)

Good readers use their prior knowledge to:
- make predictions
- visualize
- ask questions to monitor comprehension
- draw inferences
- confirm hypothesis… that’s what I expected
- determine what is important in the text
- demonstrate to others that they have understood what they have read


Strategies ThatWork, Chapter 6 Making Connections: A Bridge from the New to the Known

“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. Readers naturally make connections between books and their own lives. Once they have heard a wealth of stories and narratives, they begin to connect themes,characters, and issues from one book to another. When children understand how to connect the texts they read to their lives, they begin to make connections between what they read and the larger world. This nudges them into thinking about bigger, more expansive issues beyond their universe of home, school, and neighborhood Strategies That Work.”

Two Column Chart

Encouraging the studentsto fill in a chart helps them to summarize the story in the first column and respond to a memory, some prior knowledge, or a past experience in the second column.

For example:

|What the Story is about… |What it reminds me of… |
| ||
|The turtle swims in the water. |I once saw a turtle swimming in a pond at my grandma’s house. |
| | |
| |We fedthe turtle at school flakes the teacher bought at the |
|The turtle eats insects. |store in Kindergarten. |


After several books, the teacher should introduce the idea of coding the responses.

R this reminds me of…
T-S text to self
T-T text to text
T-W text to world

Just making a connection won’tdue. Make sure your students are not so busy trying to make a connection that they create one (in other words, lie). Also, the purpose for coding the text is to monitor comprehension, think about meaning, and enhance understanding.

Remember to ask your students, “How does that connection help you understand?”

|What the Story is about… |What itreminds me of… |
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