Five Ways to Assess Readers' Prior Knowledge

Reading educators & researchers have advocated that reading is an active, reconstructive process in which new information is assimilated with that already stored in the reader's mind, making prior knowledge one of the most significant factors in determining a reader's comprehension. A study of elementary school students of different reading skill levels (N = 32 third-sixth graders) was conducted to determine which of five techniques for assessing a reader's prior knowledge was the best. It was determined that any of these techniques - free recall, word association, structured questions, recognition, unstructured discussion - should be selected by teachers depending on which one meets their needs in type of information desired, amount of time they wish to allot, & effort they want to expend. Some form of assessment was considered useful in helping teachers evaluate their students' ability to comprehend text more accurately & be better prepared to teach new concepts in the content areas. 10 References. C. Backhaus