The Prentice School: Building Background Knowledge

Dyslexia educators are well aware of the essential components of effective reading instruction — among them, evidence-based instruction that is systematic, sequential, multisensory, and grounded in phonetic understanding. 

Thanks to a growing body of evidence over the last decade, another critical component of reading success has emerged: Background knowledge. Decoding work is essential. But building students’ background knowledge — and developing their oral language skills in the process — helps to drive reading comprehension, especially in kids with language-based learning differences. 

In a science class on photosynthesis, for example, a teacher will break down the parts of the word — or morphemes — and associated vocabulary with students, before even diving into the meat of the lesson. Group projects help to activate and reinforce the knowledge gained, providing another chance for students to engage in language practice.

ALDS schools, like The Prentice School, suffuse this kind of work across subject areas.

Read their blog post to learn more about how they provide language- and knowledge-rich scaffolding as part of dyslexia instruction. As one more example, The Windward School has also written about leveraging background knowledge to boost comprehension.