reading Strategy: Activating Background Knowledge

1. Reading Comprehension Strategies:
How to Activate Background Knowledge
Presented By:
Tri Ilma Septiana

2. What is Comprehension?
• Literally, based on Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2001:369) the meaning
of comprehension can be defined as “the ability to understand something”.
• Tierney (1990) pointed out that comprehension as a creative or complex process in which
children engage with and think about the text.
• Judith Irwin (1991) defined comprehension as a reader’s process of using “prior
knowledge” experience and the author’s text to construct meaning that’s useful to
that reader for a specific purpose.
• Successful reading  the Reader & the Text.

3. What Is Comprehension Strategies?
• Comprehension strategies are thoughtful behaviors that readers use to facilitate their
understanding. (Afflerbach, Pearson & Paris, 2008).
• Readers apply these strategies to deepen their understanding, determine whether
they’re comprehending successfully, and solve problems as they arise.
• Some comprehension strategies are as follows:
Activating background knowledge Predicting
Connecting Questioning
Determining importance Repairing
Drawing Inference Setting a purpose
Evaluating Summarizing
Monitoring Visualizing

4. The significance of activating background knowledge
• Gail E. Tompkins (2011:202) emphasized that while reading, reader must
activate background knowledge and think about what they’re reading; they
apply cognitive and metacognitive strategies.
• Van Den Broek & Kremer (2000) also stressed that the comprehension
process is started when readers activate their background knowledge and it
develops as they read aloud or listen and then respond to it. Readers
construct a “mental picture” or representation of the text through the
comprehension text.

5. How to activate background knowledge?
• Background knowledge is influenced by reader world knowledge
and literary knowledge.
Football
• World knowledge includes “World Cup”, “Sport Industry”, “Ball”,
“Scored”, “Cristiano Ronaldo or Messi”, and “Fanatic Supporter”.
• Literary knowledge includes knowing the rule of football (2 x 45
minutes, 11 players) and recognize some technical term of football
(free kick, penalty, handball, goal, and offside).

6. Reading Activities
• To activate background knowledge while reading, readers can create K-W-L chart.
Through these activities, readers thinks about the topic before they begin reading,
use vocabulary related to the topic, call up relevant information, and get interested
in reading text.
• The example of KWL chart:
Name: …………………………………….. Date:………………………………………
Topic: ………………………………………………………………….………………….
K W L
What I Know What I Wonder What I Learned

7. 1. Create a K-W-L chart. Readers create a large chart which consists of three
columns on carton or whiteboard and label every column with K for “What I
Know”, W for “What I Wonder”, and L for “What I learned”.
2. Complete the K column. At the first time, readers can stimulate their prior
knowledge by writing some information relate to the topic before reading.
Readers can write everything they know about the topic.
3. Complete the W column. In the middle column, readers can write some
questions that they wonder to find out from the text. By asking some questions
before they read a text also support their comprehension.
4. Complete the L column. At the end, readers reflects on what they have learned,
and record all information In the L column. Furthermore, to obtain deeper
comprehension, a reader can share and discuss his/her chart with another
readers.

8. Example of K-W-L
Name: Tri Ilma Date: March 6, 2014.
Topic: OWL
K W L
What I Know What I Wonder What I Learned
 Nocturnal
 Big eyes
 Fly, have wings
 Eat mice or snake
 Symbol of education
 Trendy in girl’s fashion
(i.e. bag jewelry, ring
and necklets)
 Where do owl live?
 Do owls have families?
 Can owl really carry the
mails?
 Do owl eat mice or snake?
 How do they see in the dark?
 Owl live everywhere except
Antarctica and Greenland.
 A group of owl is known as
“Parliament”.
 Eat their prey whole, and the
poo out what they can’t digest
(i.e. bones & fur) as pellets.
 They use echo to
communicate and eat
mammals but some also eat
insects or fish.