Background Knowledge: The Missing Piece of the Comprehension Puzzle

Front Cover
Heinemann, 2009 - Education - 191 pages

Why background knowledge?

  • Because the Grapes of Wrath is dry reading if students don't know about the Dust Bowl.
  • Because the Boston Tea Party is a non-event if students don't know loyalists from patriots.
  • Because knowing a triangle has 180 degrees isn't the same as knowing why.

Because content-area comprehension depends on it, you and your students need Background Knowledge.

Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey help you develop lasting subject-area understanding with ideas for modeling, guided practice, productive group work, and independent work that effectively engage adolescents. You'll learn to:

  • distinguish incidental knowledge from core background knowledge
  • check students' understanding prior to a unit with tools such as opinionnaires, interest surveys, and anticipation guides
  • model how to activate and apply prior knowledge so kids can wrestle with new content
  • build up students' background knowledge through virtual fieldtrips, YouTube, guest experts, and more
  • provide collaborative ways for students to develop expertise, show what they know, and own their learning.

Doug and Nancy also build your background knowledge with multimedia book-study resources at www.heinemann.com/backgroundknowledge.

"As teachersour job is not to simply fill students' heads with facts," write Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey. "We need to have students manipulate and apply information so that it becomes a permanent understanding." That's why the time is now for Background Knowledge.

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Contents

Contents Foreword by Donald J Leu
1
Placing Background Knowledge in Daily Teaching
21
Teacher as Archaeologist Assessing Background Knowledge
33
Copyright

8 other sections not shown

Common terms and phrases

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Bibliographic information

TitleBackground Knowledge: The Missing Piece of the Comprehension Puzzle
AuthorsDouglas Fisher, Nancy Frey
PublisherHeinemann, 2009
Original fromPennsylvania State University
DigitizedMay 2, 2011
ISBN0325026556, 9780325026558
Length191 pages
Subjects ›  ›  › 

Education / Schools / Levels / Secondary
Education / Teaching / Subjects / Reading & Phonics
Language Arts & Disciplines / Reading Skills
  
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