There are a number of ways to activate students' background knowledge before, during, and after reading a text. Structures such as think/pair/share or KWL charts (Know/Want to know/Learned) encourage students to think and discuss or write about what they know about a topic. For example, if a class is reading a story on baseball, the teacher could ask students to think about words that describe baseball. Next students can pair up and combine their words. Finally students can share their words with the entire class. For KWL, teachers can ask students to jot down what they know about baseball and what they want to know about baseball. After reading the story, students can return to the KWL chart and add what they learned about baseball.

If teachers decide to activate students' background knowledge as a whole group activity, they need to ensure that students have opportunity to express individual knowledge. Think/pair/share and KWL charts allow for both individual student responses and whole group instruction learning.    next