Background Knowledge

I was struck again about the importance of background knowledge while practicing for the Observation Survey tasks with my son. He's 4 1/2 and a pre-reader, so I had to wait patiently for him to examine each picture in the book, Sand, before he could attend to the questions I had to ask. His grandparents live at the coast, so he has a ton of background knowledge about digging in the sand at the beach and thought this was just a great book. Even though he wasn't thrilled with me asking him questions about the book instead of just reading it, he was very engaged the whole time and commented on each picture starting with the cover. Being a little boy with blond hair he asked, "Is that me?" when he saw the cover. He continued commenting on each page and when the picture shows the water splashing in the hole I got detailed instructions on how the boy should dig his hole farther away from the water if he doesn't want the water to wash it away, but if he liked watching the water wash away the hole, then it was a good place to dig. He also informed me that starfish was wrong, Grammy and Gramps told him that they are really called sea stars. And he was also very concerned about the size of the house as some other people found with their students.

I couldn't help but think about how much of himself he was bringing to this book before he was even close to being ready to attempt the text. And then I think about the kiddos in my class who have never been to a beach and how they would have to draw on images/information from TV, movies, or other books to support meaning making from this book.

It also reminds me of a volunteer that I had last year doing some Junior Great Book groups in my class. She did a whole class session at the end of the year with "The Emperor's New Clothes." We were talking about how not all kids have nursery rhymes and other traditional stories read to them. Kids are exposed to an incredible amount of cultural background knowledge through these stories. If they never hear or read them, they cannot fully understand/appreciate stories that reference these traditional tales.