LearningTip #46: Investing in Experiences Reaps Big Reading, Writing, and Learning Rewards
By Joyce Melton Pagés, Ed.D.
Mother of two children, President of KidBibs
Amber recognizes words easily while reading. Unfortunately, she is unable to recall anything about the selections she reads. She can call words but she does not comprehend.
Jeremy memorizes for tests; he does not conceptualize the content that he is learning. As a result, the information is put into short-term memory instead of long-term memory. He is not able to analyze, apply, or evaluate the information. He forgets the information soon after the test.
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There are numerous reasons why these learners are experiencing difficulties; indeed, reading and learning are extremely complex processes. But, it's entirely possible that the same solution could be work for both children. Many children experience comprehension and learning difficulties because they lack the prior knowledge which is necessary to support their learning.
Readers comprehend (or construct meaning) by relating what they are reading to what they already know. The vocabulary, concepts, and information which make up prior knowledge help the reader make connections between the text s/he is reading and his/her experiences. This prior knowledge is essential if readers are going to be able to construct meaning.
Learners, likewise, learn by linking new information to prior knowledge. It is difficult (if not impossible) for children to learn new information if they lack the cognitive hooks to attach the new information to. Further, inadequate prior knowledge makes it difficult for learners to cognitively organize information--they recall separate details and don't fit them together in meaningful ways. Finally, children who lack prior knowledge are unable to think critically about the information; typically, the best they can do is repeat what they've heard or read.
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The goal of all instruction is to help children read, write, learn, and think independently. As a result, instruction should provide children with opportunities to learn about how they read and write. Further, instruction should support children's development as independent learners by building background when needed and showing them how to activate and utilize their own prior knowledge while they are reading, writing, and learning.
While it is clear that background building is essential for young readers and learners, it is also important to recognize that background building enriches writing. Limited experiences affect how a young writer approaches writing. Prior knowledge gives the young writer content and direction for his/her writing.
Experiences provide opportunities for children to learn the concepts, vocabulary, and information that contribute to prior knowledge development. These experiences can be as simple as visits to the grocery store, reading a book together, eating in a restaurant, or playing with worms in the backyard. Or, they can be as planned and organized as a family vacation, a trip to the zoo, or playing in a hands-on museum. The value of these experiences cannot be underestimated; they provide the underpinnings for all reading, writing, learning and thinking!
Enriching Experiences to Strengthen Learning
Activating Prior Knowledge to Support Reading, Writing, and Learning
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All learners learn by doing. Learning occurs through play, everyday experiences, books, and many other types of learning opportunities.
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Play experiences provide children with opportunities to manipulate, create, and solve problems. Playing out scenarios, building, drawing, painting, molding, sculpting, digging, etc. provides support for future learning. Exploring with a magnifying glass, binoculars, telescope, measuring tools, etc. can also help children discover new things about the world.
Everyday experiences at home, school, stores, and driving around town provide important concepts and learning for the child. Seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting---DOING!---supports highly conceptualized learning.
Other everyday experiences can support learning through adult supervision. For example, cooking provides children with many opportunities to measure, pour, mix, learn new words, observe changes in states of matter, etc. In addition, supervised hobbies, sports activities, craft activities, etc. teach children a great deal.
Fiction and nonfiction books provide children with opportunities to visit other places, experience situations, pursue interests, and learn new information. Effective illustrations support the broadening of experiences and the development of prior knowledge. Reading text and relating it to the illustrations builds vocabulary, strengthens language development, and enriches the prior knowledge of the child. Discussion of books further broadens the child's understanding of characters, situations, problem-solving, etc.
Implementing a thematic approach to instruction also supports the development and activation of prior knowledge. Reading several selections about the same topic or theme affords children the opportunity to build on their prior knowledge from previous selections as they read the next selection.
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The special experiences referred to in this section are those which are planned and implemented for the purpose of enriching and extending the learning and thinking of a child. These experiences further strengthen comprehension, inspire meaningful writing, broaden the child's view of the world, strengthen learning, and stimulate thinking.
The following list is intended to be a starting place to help you discover potential background-building experiences in your community. Your local Chamber of Commerce or State Bureau of Tourism may be able to provide a list of businesses, factories, landmarks, monuments, tourist attractions, etc. This could help you plan class or family activities which would support this background-building. Further, parents may wish to organize a group of children to visit these sites; many companies and organizations are willing to provide tours for groups. Museums and Learning: A Guide for Family Visits (by the U.S. Department of Education) provides some pointers on planning a trip to a museum which will yield the greatest learning. Many of the pointers included in this article would also apply to other types of learning experiences.
Visit: a museum (hands-on, science, railroad, natural history, space, etc.), zoo, art gallery, park, wildlife park, game preserve, planetarium, weather station, exhibit, historical monument, amusement park, aquarium, etc.
Tour: a bakery, farm or ranch, soft drink bottling plant, dairy, trucking company, hospital, telephone company, power plant, printer/publisher, restaurant, radio/TV station, airport, newspaper office, water processing plant, recycling center, retirement home, warehouse, fishery, post office, grocery store (including the loading dock and storage area), movie studio, etc.
Explore: a beach, stream, mountain, forest, cave, canyon, desert, lake, etc.
Attend: storytime in libraries and bookstores, storytellers' programs, puppet shows, plays, concerts, sporting events, etc.
Observe: a(n) scientist, artist, crafter (glass, metal, leather, candles, etc.), pet groomer, shoe repairperson, tailor, architect, physician or nurse, firefighter, police officer, automobile mechanic, construction worker, etc.
Ride: a horse, bus, train, go-cart, boat, ferry, trolley, boat, etc.
Interview people about: jobs, hobbies, experiences, places they've lived, things they've done, etc.
Volunteer (with an adult) at: a soup kitchen, homeless shelter, nursing home, school for the handicapped, etc.
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The internet has tremendous potential for background-building. Web sites which display pictures and teach content abound. Virtual zoos and museums provide opportunities to explore content on numerous topics. The following web sites provide links to a multitude of virtual zoos and museums.
Virtual Field Trips for Kids site provides tours of the desert, ocean, volcanoes, etc.
In addition, web sites which provide real-time experiences can greatly enrich the learning of children. Some interesting real-time web sites include:
Journey South/Journey North: track seasonal migration of birds and other animals
Africam: view live animals at South African game preserves and national parks
These experiences support reading comprehension, promote language development, broaden concept development, stimulate thinking, show relevance for school learning in the real world, and support learning in many other ways.
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Enriching Experiences to Strengthen Learning
There are many ways that parents and teachers can strengthen he learning of children in relation to experiences. Here are a few:
1. Supply the child with books to look at and read related to the experience. Read them together, discuss the pictures, etc. Have the child write questions before the field trip or experience. These questions can guide his/her learning during the experience.
2. Talk about the experience. Share descriptions, ideas, opinions, and observations while you're having the experience together. Reflect on the experience after it's over. Talking and reflecting enriches the child's language and strengthens his/her learning.
3. Have the child keep a journal. S/he can write entries (about what s/he has done during the day), draw pictures, compose poems/stories that the experience may have inspired, etc.
4. Have the child keep a scrapbook of his/her activities. They can collect things from their field trips, mount them in their scrapbook, and label them. An instant-print camera can be used by school-age children to record the experience. Then they can write about the activity.
5. For each visit to a tourist attraction, monument, etc., have the child develop a page that could be included in a guidebook for the area. When friends or family visit from out-of-town, they can use the guidebook to decide what they would like to do. Judy Cozzens, Director of the Westridge Young Writers Workshop, describes this strategy in LearningTip #41.
6. Have the beginning reader/writer dictate his/her ideas about the experience/field trip while you print them neatly. The child can then illustrate his/her story and make it into a book. This may become one of the young child's favorite books!
7. Have the child make a baggie book for nature experiences. S/he can collect leaves, shells, sand, seeds, etc. and put each specimen in a baggie (freezer type with no writing on them works best). Specimens can be identified on labels or explanations can be written on index cards included in each baggie. Baggies can be bound on the open edge by turning it under, stapling, and taping it (or stitching it together) with a cover on the front and back.
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Activating Prior Knowledge to Support Reading, Writing, and Learning
Providing children with background-building experiences helps them develop the prior knowledge that they need to construct meaning while learning. Some children will automatically activate prior knowledge to support their comprehension. Others need instructional support to help them understand and manage their reading and learning processes.
An excellent strategy for teaching children how to link new information to prior knowledge is the KWL. This strategy, which is described in LearningTip #21, can be implemented with a whole class or an individual child by using the 3-column format on an overhead transparency, chalkboard, or sheet of paper. It can be implemented with young children in relation to books, field trips, educational videos, and other learning experiences. Further, it can support reading and study reading throughout a child's education. Activating what they think they know about the topic (first column), generating questions about what they want to know (second column), reading, and recalling what they learned (third column) provides a useful tool for students at every level. Finally, with experience, children can learn to mentally engage in these processes with a wide variety of materials. This moves children toward independence in their reading, writing, and learning processes! Providing children with background-building experiences and showing them how to use them to learn turns them into meaning-seeking, strategic, active learners------for a lifetime!
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