The Influential Role of Background Knowledge

Reading is a complex action that requires the coordination of many cognitive skills from decoding the letters on the page to bringing meaning to a collection of words requiring us to bring our prior knowledge and make connections to the text to yield comprehension. Let me illustrate this with an example:

The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then one never can tell. After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is part of life.

Were you successful in decoding the text? Were you able to read it fluently? How about your comprehension? Were you able to make sense of what you read? My guess is you had no difficulty decoding the text and read it quite fluently but struggled to make sense of it. Yet, if I had told you before reading that the paragraph was about doing laundry how would that have changed your understanding? Try it. Go back and reread it. Does it make sense now?

The intent of this simple exercise was to demonstrate the power of background knowledge in accessing text. As many are now familiar, Scarborough’s rope outlines the many elements that go into skilled reading. Yet, background knowledge is chief amongst the five language comprehension components as it plays a very significant role in comprehension. In fact, it is the number one predictor of how well a student will comprehend a text. So, knowing that, how might we harness it to improve comprehension?

The best thing we can do is leverage it in our instruction. Before we even read the text on a topic that is relatively unfamiliar to our students, we can take a few moments to build the students’ background knowledge. This can be as simple as showing some pictures or a short video about the topic. For example, let’s say we are going to be reading a text about the powerful destruction of tornadoes but the students have little to no experience with tornadoes. Then, taking a few minutes to watch a video about tornadoes can quickly develop background knowledge and serve as a significant pre-reading scaffold in preparation for reading.  You can also prepare students for an unfamiliar topic by frontloading key vocabulary or reading simpler related texts prior to the more challenging one. 

Or if you want to leverage the power of prior knowledge then you can look for ways to connect the new topic to an already know one. Like if you’re going to be reading about how animal parents care for their offspring, you could have students think about how their parents take care of them. By comparing the unknown topic to a more familiar one, students will be more ready to make connections to what they know to the new topic thus improving their comprehension. 

So the next time your class is going to read about a less familiar topic, let’s remember that reading is much more than just a mechanical process. It's about weaving together various threads of understanding.  The exercise we explored illustrates that without context, even seemingly straightforward passages can become puzzling. By taking the time to build background knowledge—whether through visuals, vocabulary preparation, or connections to familiar concepts—we can set the stage for a more productive reading experience. The goal is to make comprehension feel less like a chore and more like a natural extension of what students already know. In doing so, we not only enhance their understanding but also build their confidence in reading challenging text. 

For more ideas on how to improve reading comprehension in grade level text, consider picking up a copy of Raising Up Readers: 25 Scaffolding Strategies to Help Students Access Challenging Text.