Building Background - Chapter 5 EL Excellence Every Day

We build background knowledge and help students connect to prior knowledge to help them learn new concepts, make meaning from texts, and succeed with classroom tasks.

We build background in concepts, in language, and often in both at the same time.

Here are some strategies to build background knowledge:

• build upon students' prior knowledge and experiences
• build new background knowledge important to what you teach
• model what you expect students to do and how to do it
• pre-teach vocabulary for a text or a task
• pre-teach language for a text or a task

Do not rob students of productive struggle.  Building background knowledge prepares students for success.  Too much of a good thing can also have a negative effect.

Excellent article about building background with ELLs:

https://www.k5chalkbox.com/building-background-knowledge.html