Prior knowledge is "the content knowledge and personal experiences the reader brings to the learning task" (Billmeyer & Barton, 1998). Teachers can help students prepare for reading by incorporating prereading strategies that activate and assess the students' prior knowledge. Research conducted as revealed that students who have prior knowledge on a topic can make more connections and learn more when they read.
Some useful pre reading strategies that teachers can use to activate prior knowledge are:
The K-W-L strategy is a pre reading strategy that assist students with connecting new information with prior knowledge. K-W-L is an abbreviation for “What I know, What I want to Know and What I have Learnt.” In the first stage students brainstorm and list what they know on a particular topic before reading the text. In the second stage, students list questions that they might have about the topic. In the final stage, students read the text, looking for answers to their questions and also list what new information they have learnt.
DR/TA (Directed Reading/ Thinking Activity) is another pre reading strategy similar to K-W-L.Essentially what it entails is that the student previews the text and notes the title, subheadings and graphics. The student then writes down what they know about the subject of the selected text as well as what they think may be true about it, and what they think they will learn from closer reading of the text. Secondly students read the text up to a certain point and then discuss their earlier assumptions. This process is repeated until the student is finished reading the text. Finally the student is asked to summarize what they have learnt from this predicy, reading and proving process.
Other pre reading strategies include Anticipation guides which are used to confirm predictions about text, and Prereading Plan (PreP) which students can use to develop and modify new insights to text.
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