Prior knowledge

Prior knowledge instruction is designed to assist readers in bringing to mind their own knowledge that is relevant to understanding the text. A teacher can activate prior knowledge by asking students to think about topics relevant to the passage, by teaching the requisite relevant knowledge, by using pre-reading activity on related but better-known topics, by having the readers predict what will happen in the text based on personal experience, by having readers make associations during reading, and by previewing the story or text

In fourteen studies with students spanning grades one through nine reviewed by the NRP, prior knowledge instruction helped readers improve on recall, in question answering, and in content area and standardized reading comprehension performance. For example, in a 1988 study, Teresa A. Roberts found that prior knowledge instruction had a positive effect on both factual and inferential comprehension performance with students in grades five and nine.