Activating Background Knowledge

Activating background knowledge was always something that I spent a lot of time and energy on. For the past 3 years I taught at a title 1 school where students came to school with little to no background knowledge at all. To aid in comprehension, I always spent time talking with them, showing videos and pictures, acting things out, and basically doing anything I can to "create" these experiences that were non-existent. This year? Wow! I am shocked. Being that I am not at a title 1 school anymore, my students come in with a wealth of background knowledge. I am finding it much easier for my students to relate to the books we are reading.
Each week we focus on one comprehension strategy during our shared reading. This week we focused on predicting and connecting the text to what we know. We spent time discussing what we know, thus activating background knowledge. It was so different and "eye-opening" for me. Our first story this week was titled "Pizza at Sallys."  In this story, very simple things happened. Sally had a pizza shop, she used different ingredients to make her pizza recipe, she then sold her pizza to hungry customers. When we started to discuss the pictures my students were wiggling all over with their hands high in the air. They were so excited to share the things they cook with their parents, different recipes they like to make, their favorite restaurants, and what they know about people who worked in restaurants. This was very different for me than a room full of students who didnt speak much English and were reluctant to raise their hands.
Being that I know how important it is for students to share their experiences and connect with the text, I decided to try something different. In order for everyone to get to share I tried doing a mix, pair, share with them. The students had to mix up in the room, pair up with a partner, and share what they knew. We did this kagan strategy over and over allowing students to focus on different questions. They shared about their favorite restaurants and what they serve, our favorite pizza toppings, our least favorite toppings, and things we cook at home with our families. It was a great success! The kids were so excited to read the story to see how it compared to what they knew. When we finished we had a conversation about how the story was similar to our own experiences.
I found that when I spend a little extra time activating their background knowledge and allow them all to share what they know, they were more engaged in the story. My students remembered our experience and our story. In fact, all week they have been asking me to talk about what we know by doing a mix, pair, share! This was a great way to allow all my students to get talking about what they know in a meaningful way. We have been doing this all week. Next week, I am thinking of having them write down their experiences to share with a friend. I can't wait!