Comments on: Prior Knowledge

By: Doug

Doug — Sat, 27 May 2006 16:54:23 +0000

Regarding the relevant post“…and it’s culturally disconnected from anything they know…” refers to cultural bias, which is a fundamental problem with standardized testing. The test-makers believe they eliminate bias when they pass the test through a series of screens (a committe, really), but if we open our imaginations enough to admit that culture is more than broad ethnic categories or social groups, we see that no test can be bias-free. Even simple communication, face-to-face, is prone to the problem - as you pointed out in your excellent example with the church fire.

As to Gatto, I began reading him the other night. Didn’t see the Reading Wars stuff. It’s a volatile issue, and if you want to have some fun with it I think all you have to do is write a blog post about it and wait for the comments to roll in. I’m going to hold off on saying anything about that subject for now. If you search Borderland for the term, you can
see what happened.

I look forward to following your schema meanders. I like the word, stillen.

By: Marco Polo

Marco Polo — Sat, 27 May 2006 12:36:15 +0000

I’m continuing this conversation on my blog. Doing some (seriously required) catching up in my bloglines, I came across this post at “Are we doing anything today?” which seemed relevant.

The teaching of reading and the “phonics war” is touched on in Gatto’s history of (compulsory) education. As someone who knows nothing about this war, and who learned to read by sounding out (I guess that phonics?) as taught by my Mum before I started school at the tender age of 5, I’d be interested to hear your comments on what he writes, if you ever get around to it. Altho beating around on your bike and letting your mind quieten (I wanted to write “stillen” but that’s probably German…) and taking mind-altering and thought-provoking photos is more important.

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 25 May 2006 16:33:33 +0000

Your example sounds very much like experiences I commonly have with my primary-grade kids. Whenever I try to anticipate what they probably already understand about a topic, I invariably miss something basic that consumes a large part of the planned lesson. It’s interesting that our expectations and prior knowledge can influence our perceptions, as you point out, as well as our understanding.

Just like when I teach school, I assumed background knowledge when I wrote this, and should have spent more time explaining it instead of tacking it on here in the comments. The great thing about discussions, and the reason they are important in school, is that we can check for understanding and ask for clarification so that each of us can finally make the necessary connections.

This topic is probably worth exploring further. Thank you for highlighting it.

By: Marco Polo

Marco Polo — Thu, 25 May 2006 11:07:59 +0000

Much (embarrassed) gratitude. I (thought I) already knew about schema theory. Obviously I need to go back to school on this topic. This semester, in one class, I’ve been focussing on introducing learning strategies to my students. Last week in class I touched on this topic by showing them the title, a graphic and the first paragraph of a short article, and asking them to use these clues to predict what it would be about. My shallow understanding of schema theory led me to summarize, “Successful comprehension is more likely if you spend some time trying to predict the content.” One of the examples I used (it just happened to be to hand) was a short text entitled “The Church that Lived Again” with a graphic intended to show London’s St Paul’s silhouette surrounded by flames and smoke. Needless to say, none of my (Japanese) students understood the cultural reference. In fact, it wasn’t until I asked them for their responses (predictions) that I realized they didn’t even “see” the flames and smoke: some thought those wavy lines represented hills or mountains, others thought they were waves. I got a lesson.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 23 May 2006 16:53:04 +0000

MP, thanks for the question. Funny, I googled activating schema and saw one of my own blog posts near the top, evidence that titles matter. The theory behind the claim that Brian made, and I quoted, is called schema theory. It is a fundamental understanding of our thinking processes. According to P. David Pearson, Schema theory is a theory about the structure of human knowledge as it is represented in memory. Pearson's article is a general history of reading in the 20th century. Here is a more focused article about schema theory in particular. For mor practical discussions about schema and reading instruction see: Julie Kendall's Reading Workshop Journal; Activating Prior Knowledge at ESOL online; Increasing Comprehension by Activating Prior Knowledge at the ERIC Digest; A study guide for Prereading Strategies; A module from an online course on Reading Processes. Most of the ideas for reading instruction address activating prior knowledge. I should emphasize once again that the knowledge has to come from somewhere. Most often it won't be from having people tell each other things, but from experience of the world. The activation of the knowledge through talk and reading creates intertextual connections which is where the learning occurs, connecting the new to the known. A book called Mosaic of Thought has a great chapter on this subject, but is also worth reading as a general introduction to reading comprehension.