Activating Prior Vocabulary Knowledge

Classroom Examples of Activiting Prior Vocabulary Knowledge

Allen (1999) suggests that students’ prior knowledge about a concept, and the words related to it, represents a key element for planning vocabulary instruction. Brainstorming and prediction activities help students to activate this prior knowledge and emphasize relationships between words.

Word Sort
In a Word Sort, the teacher lists words from a text prior to reading. Students identify the meaning and properties of each word and then "sort" them into collections of words with similar features. This process links students' prior knowledge to the basic vocabulary of a reading selection. Vacca and Vacca (1996) describe two forms of Word Sorts: “closed,” in which the teacher provides categories and features of words to students; and “open,” in which the teacher provides only the words and students come up with the rest.

[Vacca, R.D., Vacca J. (1995). Content area reading. (5th. Ed.). Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman]
http://www.justreadnow.com/strategies/sort.htm

List-Group-Label
The List-Group-Label strategy helps students organize key terms (including unclear and technical terms) in a reading selection. Students group words into logical categories based on shared features and label the categories clearly.
http://www.justreadnow.com/strategies/list.htm

Word Knowledge Rating
With Knowledge Rating, students rate how well they know key vocabulary for a reading topic. According to Feldman and Kinsella (2002) this strategy encourages students to think metacognitively about their background knowledge. They then learn more about the vocabulary with the teacher’s help when reading the selection, which allows them to modify their initial thoughts. This strategy helps the teacher distinguish between words students truly understand and those they simply recognize.

[Feldman & Kinsella. Strategy: Teaching Vocabulary Rating: Tips for Mixed-Ability Classrooms. Prentice Pearson Hall.]
http://www.phschool.com/eteach/language_arts/2002_10/essay.html