Which activity best activates students' background knowledge to support comprehension?

• A. Eliciting and connecting to students' prior experiences and relevant context before reading.
• B. Providing no prior context to avoid bias.
• C. Relying solely on decoding without context.
• D. Introducing new vocabulary without context.

Answer: (A)

Activating students' background knowledge before reading helps comprehension by linking new information to what they already know. When learners share their experiences and encounter relevant context first, their brains can hook new ideas onto familiar schemas, which makes meaning-making easier and reduces cognitive load during reading. This pre-reading step also sets purpose and helps students anticipate content, guiding attention to important details and supporting inference as they read.

For example, before a science text on weather, drawing on students’ experiences with storms or sunny days and previewing key terms gives them a scaffold to attach new vocabulary and concepts to already familiar ideas.

Other approaches miss this essential link. Not providing prior context fails to stimulate those connections, leaving new information harder to integrate. Focusing only on decoding ignores how understanding depends on what readers already know. Introducing new vocabulary without context doesn’t establish those bridges, so words may be recognized without aiding comprehension.

So, eliciting and connecting to students’ prior experiences and relevant context before reading best supports comprehension.