Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement

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Building Background Knowledge for Academic
Achievement

• Sioux Falls School District

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Introduction

• Knowing strong academic background knowledge
  impacts students academic achievement in school.
  We must use the most effective strategies to
  create indirect experiences to build student
  background knowledge.

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How does building background knowledge fit with
what we are already doing?

• The processes involved in Marzanos Building
  Background Knowledge are aligned with Value
  Added.
• The Sheltered Instruction model being used by ELL
  supports the instructional process in Building
  Background Knowledge.
• Key vocabulary emphasized
• Student journals
• Word study books
• Contextualizing vocabulary

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Food for Thought

• What does the research say?
• How do we build background knowledge for our
  students?
• The power of wide reading and language
  experience.
• Direct vocabulary instruction.
• Defining an academic vocabulary.

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Overview

• In order to bridge the gap for our students we
  must provide them with indirect experiences that
  build their academic background knowledge.

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The Importance of Background Knowledge

• What students already know about the content is
  one of the strongest indicators of how well they
  well learn new information relative to the
  content.
• Academic background knowledge affects more than
  just school learning.
• Studies have also shown its relation to
  occupation and status in life.

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Knowledge is Power

• A students academic background knowledge has
  impact on the rest of their lives
• Success in school has strong bearing on their
  earning potential.

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How we acquire background knowledge

• Our ability to process and store information
• Fluid intelligence
• The number and frequency of our academically
  oriented experiences

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The Consequences of Poverty

• Findings in Figure 1.4 characterize the
  relationship between poverty an academic success
  after controlling for ethnicity, family
  structure, and mothers education.

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The Consequences of Poverty

• Findings in Figure 1.4 characterize the
  relationship between poverty an academic success
  after controlling for ethnicity, family
  structure, and mothers education.

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Schools can Make a Difference

• Direct approaches to Enhancing academic
  Background Knowledge
• Provide enriching experiences
• Establishing mentoring relationships
• Indirect Approaches A Viable Answer

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Six Principals for Building an Indirect Approach
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1. Background Knowledge is stored in bimodal
packets in the episodic memory

• Glossary of terms
• Episodic memoryspecific learning episodes
• Semantic memorygeneral understandings over time
• Bimodal memory packets
• Linguistic-logogen episodic semantic
  propositional networks (The smallest unit of
  knowledge that can stand as a separate
  assertion.)
• Nonlinguistic-imagensnonlinguistic
  representations that accompany the propositional
  networks)

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Propositional networks depicting a specific event
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Information moves from propositional to
de-contextualized propositional
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2. The Process of Storing Experiences in
Permanent Memory Can Be Enhanced

• First we must understand the three functions of
  our memory

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Three Functions of Memory
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3. Background Knowledge is Multidimensional and
Its Value Is contextual

• No general set of background knowledge helps us
  learn in every situation.
• Little or no carry over between subjects
• Common core some carry over
• Enhancement of Academic background knowledge must
  be done subject by subject.

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4. Even Surface level Background Knowledge Is
Useful

• When we retrieve a packet of information for use
  in working memory, we initially access its
  surface-level characteristics only.
• Knowledge of a given topic is organized in a
  hierarchy.
• Top level knowledge - specific facts
• The next level more general characteristics
• The next level even more general characteristic
  associated with the broadest category the word
  would fit

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5. Background Knowledge Manifests Itself as
Vocabulary Knowledge

• Hard facts to support this statement
• Research indicates that vocabulary knowledge is
  highly correlated with family income
• Estimated 4,700 word difference between High and
  low socioeconomic students (SES)
• Mid-SES 1st graders know 50 more words than
  Low-SES
• High SES 1st graders know twice the words of
  Low-SES

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What does this mean for out ELL students?

• Children from culturally and linguistically
  diverse backgrounds may struggle to comprehend a
  text or concept presented in class because their
  schema do not match those of the culture for
  which the text is written or because they do not
  understand the academic vocabulary written in
  English.
• Teachers must also be aware of the level of
  vocabulary knowledge students, especially at
  secondary levels, nee in order to be successful
  in content classes. Both Sheltered Instruction
  and Marzanos Building Background Knowledge
  emphasizes the need to practice key terms that
  will strengthen students vocabulary knowledge.

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6. Virtual experiences Can Enhance Background
Knowledge

• Virtual Experience
• Information must move from the sensory memory to
  the working memory
• (Remember the camping example of how the
  information moved from the episodic memory to the
  semantic memory. This is a necessary step in
  solidify the learning process.)

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The continuous learning process
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Reflect

• How effective do you feel you are at planning and
  using strategies that support what we know about
  the brain and how it learns?
• What teaching strategies support our brains
  process of storing information in both linguistic
  and nonlinguistic memory packets?
• What components of your last years Value Added
  training utilizes this brain research?

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Reading is a Form of Virtual Experience

• In the working memory the virtual experience is
  for all practical purposes the same as the direct
  experience.
• Although it is cliché, it is accurate think of
  reading as a magic carpet to new places and
  experiences
• Reading provides the promise of every students
  having a rich array of virtual experiences

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Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) supports the
positive impact reading can have on background
knowledge.
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Language Interactions as a Form of Virtual
Experience

• The more students talk and listen to others, the
  more virtual experiences are generated
• Hart and Risleys research indicates
• By the time children in welfare homes are 1 year
  only they have only about 50 of the language
  experience of children from working-class
  families and only 30 of the language experience
  of children from professional families.

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Educational Television as a Form of Virtual
Experience

• Research indicates
• Watching general television programs little
  impact on the development of background knowledge
• Watching educational television significantly
  enhanced the development of such knowledge.

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Tapping the Power of Wide Reading and Language
Experience

• Sustained Silent Reading (SSR)
• To be effective the SSR program must have
  specific characteristics and must be continuous
  over many years
• If done only a year or two the gains might by
  evident initially but will fade when the program
  ceases

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More information to support wide reading

• Research has shown that past the 4th grade, the
  number of words a person knows depends primarily
  on how much time they spend reading (Hayes
  Ahrens, 1988 Nagy Anderson, 1984 Nagy
  Herman, 1987 Stanovich, 1986)
• Adults that make a habit of reading have a
  vocabulary that is about four times the size of
  those who rarely or never read.

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Recommended Modified SSR

• Eight Factors needed
• Access (to wide selection of informational
  reading)
• Appeal ( books with topics of interest to
  students)
• Conducive environment (comfortable surroundings)
• Encouragement (explicit praise)
• Staff training ( consistent implementation using
  effective strategies)
• Non-accountability (student choice and interest
  driven not teacher assigned)
• Follow-up activities (cooperative
  grouping/relationship building)
• Distributed time to read (non fiction)

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A Five Step Process
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Step One Students Identify Topic of Interest to
Them

• I-Search helps with the process
• Students gather information about a topic of
  interest, synthesize and organize the information
  and use it to complete a written response or
  project of some sort
• Personal Read and Reflect Time (PRRT)
• Students may change their topic at any time

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Step Two Students Identify Reading Material

• Students use the classroom library and the school
  library to begin choosing material from which to
  read and I-search their topic
• ModelGuided selection and large group activity
  to begin the process

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Step Three Students are Provided Uninterrupted
Time to Read

• Teachers and students should have 20 to 30 minute
  sessions, twice a week for SSR /Personal Read and
  Reflect Time (PRRT)
• Schedules can be building-wide, grade-by-grade,
  or class-by-class
• Put class rules in place that all must follow
• Consider best placement of SSR/PRRT during the
  school day

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Step Four Students Write about or Represent
Information in Their Notebooks

• Use of Academic Notebook (two sections-PRRT and
  vocabulary)
• Responses to reading must be recorded in the
  notebook
• Free responsesopen ended responses, expressive
  writing (linguistic and non-linguistic responses)
• Structured responsesguided questions to promote
  moving knowledge to permanent memory

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Step Five Students Interact with the Information

• Student interaction doesnt just happenteacher
  serves as helper
• Group activities must have explicit structure and
  purpose
• Demonstrate interaction activities- taking turns
  speaking, listening and questioning
• Organize into groups of three to five
• Students share topic and one thing that they have
  learned about their topic
• Not all students must share each time

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Reflect on the SSR/PRRT process

• What steps of this process are you already doing
  in your school day? What steps do you need to
  change in your instruction?
• How do the steps of this process capitalize on
  what we know about how the brain learns best?
• Which steps are in the process are value added
  components?
• What would you have to do to fully implement this
  process?

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Building Academic Background Through Direct
Vocabulary Instruction

• The Case for Direct Vocabulary Instruction
• Three Generalizations
• Estimates of vocabulary size vary considerably
• Wide reading may not enhance vocabulary as much
  as once thought
• Direct vocabulary instruction

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Characteristics of Effective Direct Vocabulary
Instruction
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Characteristic 1 Effective vocabulary
instruction does not rely on definitions

• When people first learn words, they understand
  them more as descriptions of words as opposed to
  definitions.

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Characteristic 2 Students must represent their
knowledge of words in both linguistic and
nonlinguistic ways.

• For information to be anchored in permanent
  memory, it must have linguistic (language based)
  and nonlinguistic (imagery based) representations

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Characteristic 3 Effective vocabulary
instruction involves the gradual shaping of word
meanings through multiple exposures

• To understand words at a deeper level, students
  require repeated and varied exposure to words,
  during which they revise their initial
  understandings.

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Characteristic 4 Teaching Word Parts Enhances
students Understanding of Terms
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Characteristic 5 Different types of Words
Require Different Types of Instruction

• Nouns
• General
• Specific

• Verbs
• General
• Specific

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Characteristic 6 Students should discuss the
terms they are learning

• Discussion helps students encode information in
  their own words, helps them view things from
  different perspectives, and allows for
  self-expression

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Characteristic 7 Students Should Play with Words

• Games
• Present manageable challenges for students
• Arouse curiosity
• Involve some degree of fantasy arousal

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Characteristic 8 Instruction Should focus on
Terms that have a High Probability of enhancing
academic success.

• Beck and Mckeown (1985) suggest that vocabulary
  be thought of in three tiers
• Tier 1-most basic words
• Tier 2-appear infrequently enough in reading that
  there is little chance of learning them in
  context
• Tier 3- words specific to subject areas

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Six Steps to Effective Vocabulary Instruction

• Applying the Eight Characteristics of effective
  vocabulary instruction in a program to enhance
  background knowledge.

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Step 1 The Teacher Provides a Description,
Explanation, or Example of the New Term
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Step 2 Students Restate the Explanation of the
New Term in Their Own Words

• Students construct their own explanations based
  on what the teacher has presented and write them
  in their academic notebooks, which are divided
  into subject areas.

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Step 3 Students Create Nonlinguistic
Representation
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Examples of nonlinguistic representations

• Graphic organizers (Kidspiration)
• Drawings
• Photographs
• Pictographs
• Students can also be encouraged to create
• mental pictures and act out meanings of new
• words.

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Step 4 Students Periodically Do Activities That
help Them Add to Their Knowledge of Vocabulary
Terms
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Possible Activities

• Comparing terms
• Classifying terms
• Generating Metaphors using terms
• Generating Analogies using terms
• Revising initial descriptions or nonlinguistic
  representations of terms
• Using understandings of roots and affixes to
  deepen knowledge of terms

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Step 5 Periodically the Students are asked to
Discuss the Terms with One Another
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Ideas for student discussion

• Organize students into small groups asking them
  to discuss terms in the vocabulary section of the
  academic notebook.
• Prompts for discussion could include
• terms interesting to students
• questions about specific terms
• identify terms with multiple meanings
• favorite terms
• terms that were difficult to learn and why

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Step 6 Periodically Students Are Involved in
Games That Allow Them to Play with the Terms
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Fun with Words

• Charades
• Pictionary
• Gestures
• Taboo
• Hangman
• Great web site for classroom games
  http//www.teachersdesk.org/spell_plans.html

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Reflect on the Vocabulary development process

• How is it different from traditional vocabulary
  instruction?
• Which steps are in the process are value added
  components?
• What parts of this are you already doing in your
  school day?
• What would you have to do to fully implement this
  process?

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As we look to utilizing this research, it is
imperative that we follow the guidelines and
maintain both the integrity of the program and
focus on building academic background knowledge.