Activating Prior Knowledge and Building Background

Yesterday we uploaded a page on "Activating Prior Knowledge and Building Background" onto the ELD Strategies main site. We quickly explained the distinction between activating prior knowledge and building background. Activating prior knowledge signifies that teachers find out what students know, don't know or have misconceptions about regarding a topic of study. When it is determined that students may not have background on a certain topic, teachers can employ a variety of activities to build background and understanding of the topic.
The SIOP model has a "Building Background" component and gives a variety of strategies that teachers may use to build background. For teachers who have attended Project GLAD training, the focus/motivation strategies such as the inquiry chart and observation charts are designed to activate students' prior knowledge, and the cognitive content dictionary (ccd) and teacher-made big books can be used to build background knowledge.

SIOP explains that one component of building background is the teaching of academic vocabulary. According to SIOP, academic vocabulary consists of three elements: 1) content specific words; 2) functional language; and, 3) morphological analysis and word study. One excellent strategy to teach content-specific words and morphological analysis is the cognitive content dictionary (Project GLAD).

Please visit the main site and check out the resources that we are creating about building background. The site is currently under-construction but we are currently working on adding additional details about academic language, specific "how-to" information about building background strategies, resources for teachers about how to provide morphological analysis on selected academic vocabulary, as well as additional ELD strategies that be used during ELD time. You can visit the Building Background page that we have created by clicking here.
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