STUDY GROUP OUTLINE

1. Students in content-based classes improve reading skills significantly more than do students in skill-based only classes. (Pg 117) Consider your own teaching. Are your classes more content oriented or skill oriented? Name three specific things you could do in the next month to increase the amount of content-based information.
2. The following statements are based on “Two Dozen Reasons Why Background Knowledge Is Important.” (Pgs 118-121) For each grouping, create a lesson(s) that incorporates each reason. Identify how background knowledge is used and which reason it specifically addresses. Avoid combining multiple categories since too much information may be overwhelming and confusing for students.

• Background knowledge helps get information into short-term memory.
• Background knowledge stored in mental models frees up working memory.
• Background knowledge helps get information into long-term memory.
• Background knowledge helps students imagine a situation in their minds, which helps them remember.
  

• Background knowledge about sounds (called phonemes) helps people make sense of what they hear and read.
• Background vocabulary knowledge helps people make sense of longer sentences.
• People with more, better-organized background knowledge understand what they read better.
• Background knowledge helps students understand maps, graphs, and other graphics.
• Background knowledge helps students read for meaning, which helps get information into memory.
• Students read faster, understand more, and draw more logical conclusions in familiar subject areas.
• Background knowledge gives adult literacy students a basis for understanding somewhat more sophisticated reading materials about familiar topics than children at the same grade reading level.

• Background knowledge helps people know what to notice in a problem.
• Background knowledge is stored in mental models that affect what we see and hear.
• People answer questions more logically in areas in which they have background knowledge.
• Background knowledge about types of problems helps people solve problems.
• However, background knowledge that includes misconceptions can get in the way of learning.
• Having background knowledge allows students to learn from analogies.
• Background knowledge helps students understand metaphors and figurative language.
• A lot of background knowledge is specific to different topic areas, so students need to get background in many subjects.
• Students can transfer knowledge better from one subject to another when they have a good understanding of the subject they are transferring from.

• Background knowledge helps students learn strategies because they must have something to use the strategies on.
• New knowledge forces students to learn new strategies.

• Experts have more subject knowledge than beginners.
• Background knowledge helps learners see what is important in a situation and what is trivial.

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