USING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

•  When you are preparing to learn something new, it is a good idea to get your brain ready to receive the information.  Think of your brain like a gigantic filing system that contains all the things you have ever learned, read, listened to, seen, or experienced. As you can imagine, organizing all of those files is quite a large job. Fortunately, for you, your brain has an automatic system that it uses to connect files together to help you quickly locate information you have already learned. If you take a few moments to prepare your brain, you can make it easier for your brain to connect what you are learning to your prior knowledge, all those things that you already have filed away in your brain’s filing cabinet.

• If you are listening to a teacher or other speaker, write down the topic. Activate your prior knowledge by thinking about things that you already know about that topic. Jot down a few notes before, during, and after the lesson. If you are going to read new information from a textbook, either by yourself or as part of a group, first read the title and scan through the photographs and other visual aids to let your brain make a sort of outline for what it will be receiving. If there are vocabulary words in the margins, read the definitions so you will already be familiar with the new words when you see them in the reading. If you forget their meaning when you are reading, look in the margin again to clarify what they mean.

• Take the time to activate your prior knowledge. Your brain will make the connections it needs to file the new information where you can find it. You will be a more successful student.

Name:__________________________________

Answer the following questions based on the reading passage. Don’t forget to go back to the passage whenever necessary to find or confirm your answers.

1)  What is your brain’s information system compared to in this passage?   

2)  How can you make it easier for your brain to form connections between new information and things you’ve learned before?

3) What does it mean to activate your prior knowledge?

4)  What is something you can do to help you understand new vocabulary in the reading?

5)  What is a benefit of using your prior knowledge?