This episode focuses on the importance of building background knowledge in K–5 literacy classrooms using EL Education’s knowledge-building curriculum. Guests include Jackie Presson, a literacy coach at Muskegon Area ISD supporting Oakridge Lower Elementary, along with hosts Katie and Kevin. The discussion covers research, classroom examples, and practical strategies to support comprehension, engagement, and vocabulary development.
Resources & Links:
EL Education: Learn more about the K-5 Literacy Curriculum that forms the foundation of our conversations. Link to EL Education
Literacy Essentials – Best practices in literacy instruction
EL Education Your Curriculum Companion (Purple Book, p. 21)
Natalie Wexler – The Knowledge Gap Article
Tanya Wright – A Teacher's Guide to Vocabulary Development Across the Day
Knowledge Matters Campaign – Definition of Knowledge-Building Curriculum
It was just like a light bulb moment for me.
And I looked at her and I said, it's it should feel different. You're very right.
El is designed differently.
It's designed to build knowledge. First, kids come to the table with different amounts of background knowledge. We can't assume that kids come in knowing a lot about a certain topic Knowledge Building. Curriculums are designed to build that knowledge with kids.
Welcome back to fuel up a place for conversations with and for those using el education as a resource to support k5 literacy learning, we are so excited to have you with us for this week's episode. Today we zoom in on the topic of building background knowledge. We hope today's talk serves as a pit stop, a chance to swing by for some fresh energy, insights, encouragement and celebration as we work together to do what's best for our learners, this is a chance to pull up so wherever this finds you today, we hope you are able to pull over, take a breath and crank it up in that spirit. Here we
go. Well, we are back for another great episode, Katie, we are diving into building background knowledge today. Are you fueled up?
I am fueled up, and I'm ready to go around this topic.
Well, thinking about background knowledge, what is one topic you know a lot about that actually might surprise somebody.
So a topic that I know a lot about is football, football. Football. Really big into football and watch NFL. We watch college go, Sparty.
Yeah, I was thinking about that, like, where is your green and white today?
I know, not today, but Saturday, game day, Saturday, the whole family will be wearing green, white. All right, go. Spartans. So Kevin, what about you? What is a topic that might surprise people, that you have a lot of knowledge around?
Yeah, so this is actually a new one in the last year, and it is pizza making, pizza making, yeah, so I invested in pizza steel, so you can do homemade pizza right in your oven and a pizza peel, which is like this wooden paddle that you can put your pizza in and take it out with and make my own homemade dough. It is the coolest activity to do with friends and family and football.
Oh, perfect. I think I might need some pizza with my football this weekend, but also for the studio, I think you need to bring in some pizza for our studio or next recording. Like, what's your favorite kind of pizza? I like pepperoni and sausage.
Okay, pepperoni and sausage. All right. I'm gonna hook you up yet.
I heard some new words, pizza steel. I think that might have to go on our
vocabulary wall and pizza peel. Yes, it says
few new vocabulary. Yeah, we're
gonna build this thing up perfect while we eat pizza. We all have background knowledge on a number of topics. And let's pause for a minute and simply define what background knowledge is background knowledge is all the information, personal experiences and understanding a person already holds on a specific topic. Simply put, it's what we bring with us to the table. Someone might be wondering, what does current research have to say about background knowledge? So let's take a minute to get grounded. Katie, what does current research have to say about building background
knowledge? Yes, so from the El companion guide on page 21 it talks about knowledge. Builds knowledge. The more one knows about a topic, the more one is able to read and understand about that topic. And also from an article from Natalie Wexler, it talks about studies have repeatedly shown that readers who have knowledge of the topic they're reading about are better able to understand that text. There's also evidence that reading comprehension scores are highly correlated with general culture knowledge, suggesting that the more knowledge you have, the better you can understand what you read. Knowledge builds knowledge.
Yeah. Good. Stuff. Now that we are grounded, we are excited to invite our guests to the table. This guest is a familiar face to both Katie and me, and we are privileged to have her as a colleague at the ISD. I always learn something new when I see her in action. A big welcome to Jackie pressen, what's up? Jackie? Hey. Jackie is a literacy coach at the Muskegon area ISD, and supports literacy learning at Oak Ridge lower elementary Welcome to fuel up, Jackie. Thanks for having me. All right, so we were talking about background knowledge, yeah, like tossing across the table to you, what is one of those things that you know a lot about that might surprise somebody.
Well, this is gonna shock everyone. Oh, man, you guys ready? Yep, hunting. Oh, specifically, Raccoon hunting. No way. Look at your eyes.
There's something not know that about
you. I know you would have never guessed it all
right. So here's the follow up question, yeah, do you have a coon hat?
I don't anymore, okay, but I used to
yes. Oh man,
I know lots about the different types of dogs, the different equipment, how to track a dog, how to train a dog.
Ah, well, you might have to just teach us some of anytime, anytime like
the studio is silent. I think because we were just I told
you never would have guessed it.
No, well, we always start with some fun questions, and so Katie, get us
launched. All right, Jackie, welcome. Excited to have you at the table today. What is your go to snack or drink that fuels you up and gets you moving?
So I know on previous episodes, there's been a lot of talk about coffee, and that is also my go to drink. Not quite trucker coffee, but I do like coffee with cream, no sugar, nice.
What's your go to cream? Just half and half. Okay, so pretty simple. Yeah, need that coffee, just as I do.
That's right. All right. Question number two, Jackie, what song would you crank up to the max to fuel you up and launch your day?
So I only crank music up when I'm in my car and the windows are down. And I'd have to go with Tom Petty's free falling.
Oh, free falling. Nice. That is a good one.
Yeah, totally. Can you see it like in the car?
Yeah, we need to add that to our studio playlist.
That's what I'm thinking. This playlist continues to get longer, and the good news for us, like every song that gets added to this place is a good one. So we are adding free falling to that playlist to get us fueled up. All right, so we are ready to dive into our topic for today, building background knowledge and a little background knowledge for our listeners, the three of us literacy coaches at this table today all use and support el education in the schools and the teachers that we walk alongside. And I wonder if we just follow up on some of the research Katie shared earlier this idea of how comprehension and building background knowledge are connected. We were talking the three of us earlier today around this baseball study that is out and Jackie, I wonder if you could, like, tell us more about this baseball study. Yeah.
So this baseball study is actually a pretty old study. It was done in 1987 but it carries a lot of weight today, and it still holds true today. It's a study that took a group of kids like, I think it was around 64 kids, and they separated them by their their reading level, so they were either considered high or low readers, but they also separated them by their knowledge about baseball into high level knowledge about baseball or low level knowledge about baseball. And what they found is that actually the kids who had a lower reading level scored higher when they came to the table with background knowledge. So it's quite interesting that they outperformed the higher level readers who didn't have as much background
knowledge. Yeah, that is crazy. Like I think the assumption would be, if you have a high level of reading skill, you're automatically gonna score high in a comprehension but to notice kids who came with just some areas for growth around those reading skills, but yet, they had a high level of knowledge on baseball that background knowledge allowed them to score high in comprehension,
and it's allowing them to access text that they might not have been able to access because they didn't have that background knowledge totally based on their level, that's really.
Interesting. I often like to think about learning a new language, right? Like you might be able to read a Spanish passage, or you might be able to decode it, but if you don't have the background knowledge on what the words mean, you're not going to comprehend it. So you know when you think about it that way, it really helps put it into perspective. Background knowledge is important.
I think that really connects to us as adults, right? Because we sometimes forget what it's like to be first graders or second graders and learning to read, and now we have to remember what we read. So I really like that example that puts it into perspective for us as teachers.
I love that. And I think what you shared earlier today about a topic that you knew a lot about that might surprise somebody football, like for the three of us at the table. I mean, I watched some football. I don't know about Jackie. Do you watch football? No. Okay, so Jackie doesn't watch football, and that's totally cool, but I wonder if we had a football book in the table. Matter what our skills were, my hunch is your key, you, Katie, are going to be able to access that book maybe at a greater level than we might be able to, because you have this background knowledge on words like quarterback and touchdown and whatever those words might be
the vocabulary, right? I know what the vocabulary is, so I'm able to comprehend it a little bit higher because I'm not thinking about those words as I'm reading.
Yeah. So that study, the baseball study, if you if you haven't heard of it, or maybe you have, it's just such a great reminder how of the importance of building background knowledge and how it impacts a student's ability to access a text and show their comprehension. There's a number of pieces of research out there that support this, like just tossing this out to the table. What else is out there that you guys have heard?
Well, Katie kind of mentioned it earlier. Natalie Wexler is an author of the knowledge gap. And you know, she she does a lot of work around, how do we close that knowledge gap. And she says, background knowledge is like Velcro, right? If you've ever really looked closely at a piece of velcro, you see all these little hooks on it. And background knowledge is like that. We're giving kids Velcro, right? And the idea is that they will be able to attach new learning onto that background. The more knowledge that's background knowledge that someone brings to the table, the more likely they're able to grow ideas and learn new vocabulary
and get smarter. It goes right back to that knowledge builds knowledge right exactly, yes,
yeah, that the picture of velcro is powerful. Like, maybe this sounds silly, but just as we have learners that come into our classrooms to just like, imagine them with this big piece of Velcro on them.
Yeah, totally. And they have lots of different Velcro on them, right? Totally. So they're just adding more and more on to each of those pieces. And sometimes the pieces are going to start connecting.
Ah, I love it. The connection is key, right? To start connecting.
So those are some great pieces of research out there that just set the table for our conversation around building background knowledge as we think about schools in the curriculum that they have in place to support English language learning. You may have heard this term called knowledge building curriculum Yale education would fall into the bucket of knowledge building curriculums. So we want to take a minute just to define what is that there's an organization I would call knowledge Matters campaign, and they define a knowledge building curriculum this way. They say knowledge building ELA curricula are intentionally designed to build a deep and wide knowledge base in the various fields of science, history, literature and the arts, starting in kindergarten, US elementary schools spend very little time on science and social studies, so time spent in English language, Arts and Literacy should coherently build knowledge while reading, writing, speaking and listening are being mastered. I thought that was such a good definition of what a knowledge building curriculum is. Have you guys heard that term before?
Yeah, but I think it's interesting that not all the teachers have, yes, it makes me think of last year we were actually piloting El, you know, we were trying it on, seeing if this was gonna fit for us. And a kindergarten teacher was, you know, a few weeks in, and she's like, Jackie, I just can't help but say that I feel like I'm teaching science and not reading this. And so I'm like, it was just like a light bulb moment for me. It was like, Oh my gosh. And I looked at her and I said, it's, it should feel different. It does feel different. And you're very right, like, and so then I talked to her about this idea about El is designed differently, because it's designed to build, not. Knowledge first, Katie, you had mentioned earlier that you know kids come to the table with different amounts of background knowledge, right? We can't assume that kids come in knowing a lot about a certain topic. So knowledge building curriculums are designed to build that knowledge with the kids.
That is such a good story that you shared about that kindergarten teacher. Yeah.
And afterwards it was, she was like, Oh my gosh. It all makes sense now. And then her whole perspective about El just changed. She's like, this makes so much sense. Why haven't we been teaching like this the whole time?
Oh my goodness, wow, yeah. And so often do we hear, you know, I've experienced this. We all experienced it, and we are in conversations with teachers who are on the front lines or time is such a commodity, and there's not a lot of it. And if there's something that typically gets cut off the plate, it tends to be science and social studies, and not that this is a full replacement of that, but the story that she shared about this feels like a science curriculum that's kind of cool.
Yeah, there in Michigan, science and social studies is only about 16 to 18 minutes a day. That's, on average, what elementary classrooms spend on social science and social studies. If you think about it, that's our social and natural world, right? Like this is the world that we live in, and we got to provide kids opportunities to learn about that.
That's a great reminder, how many minutes 16 to 18 minutes? 16 minutes to 16 to 18 minutes on average as part of a day of learning?
Yes, wow. And you can find that in Tanya Wright's book on vocabulary
development. We'll link that in resources today. Yeah,
jump into really interesting to think about,
yes, but, and a good feeling that this is, you know, if you happen to be using this resource that does emphasize learning in the context of science and history and all of those different topics as they're learning about literacy. So speaking about El, a question to toss out to the table next, how is El structured to support all kids with gaining background knowledge we've talked about, you know, it's like kids come in with these invest visible pieces of Velcro. Some may be empty at the moment, and some might be full or fuller than others. How have you seen el structure to support the gaining of that background knowledge?
Yeah, so it goes back to my conversation with that kindergarten teacher, right? Like we sat and we looked at how, how is El designed, and the first unit of El is all about building background knowledge, right? Leveling the playing field kids. We're going to fill them with as much knowledge as we can, so that they all when they all get to the next unit or two, they all have common experiences around their topic. So that first unit is all about building background knowledge. The second unit of the module extends into research. So kids are learning a little bit more in different in different sources, like maybe they're doing some independent research, or they're reading different books about the topic. And then lastly, which is the coolest part, is Unit Three goes into writing. Kids are now going to write about what they've learned. And the coolest thing is that kids are writing. It's definitely a different feeling, because it used to be kids might even shed some tears when it is writing time, and now they don't. They don't say, What do I write about? Because they are they have so much knowledge about this topic that they can write about it. So it's really cool to see that.
So it really builds on itself. Teachers are spending, you know, two months really immersing and you mentioned leveling that playing field. So then when they do get to that writing unit, they have so much to write about and their vocabulary. They're using lots of vocabulary, right?
Yes, and that reminds me, too, all of these units are structured in a way where students have so much time to talk and grow ideas and practice their vocabulary. I cannot tell you how many times teachers say they're, they're, they're just so impressed with the vocabulary that their students are using because of El,
which goes back to that motivation and engagement. They're learning, they're talking. They're constantly going back to those words, which means they're probably more engaged and
motivated, and they're adding to their Velcro. Yes, yes, there we go. Every time they talk about it and use those words, right?
Such a great reminder to provide those spaces for those kids to turn and talk and be in collaboration with their classmates. Made me think too, as we were talking about vocabulary and Velcro. You know. Another place I've seen it is just in the tech sets, like as they gain this knowledge, and as they're in the conversations with their their classmates about these topics, and as they're learning this vocab, they're able to access them easier, because now they have that background knowledge to read those books Absolutely.
And the companion guide speaks to that as well. It talks about that reading or listening to a series of text on the same topic so those text sets can yield as much as four times the vocabulary growth.
Oh, my goodness. I think that that quote was based on a research study.
Yes, it was, and it will be found on page 21 companion book.
Yeah, it's a purple 121 of the big purple book. That's the nickname we give it, all right. So, lots of good structures to support the gaining of background knowledge with all of our kids. Jackie, question to you, what are some of those noticings you've had about the teachers and the students that you've interacted with as they've used this knowledge building curriculum.
Yeah, I would say with students, it's just awesome to see them so engaged, right? You go into a kindergarten classroom and they're engaged in play and talking about sharing, and second grade, they're actually digging fossils out, right? So kids are super engaged, and then that creates Happy Teachers, right? Teachers want to see their kids learning, and so that makes them super excited to do the work. So it's really cool to see the engagement, for sure,
it makes the learning come alive. It's not just them reading in a book, right? That's part of it, but digging those fossils, it's making that come alive for them, and hopefully they'll remember that when they're right
and when they go to read, then they can connect it back to an experience
I've seen so many playgrounds where second graders have made their mark on the baseball diamond field with digging for fossils. So kids go out to play for baseball, and the whole baseball field is full of holes where kids have dug using sticks or shovels because they are so excited in anticipation of finding a fossil. It is the coolest
thing that happens at our school, too, digging for digging
for fossils. The rest of the teachers are like, Oh, I know what you guys are, yeah, that's
right, some good evidence of the learning, right?
One of the things I've noticed too, is just the connections to home. Like not only they talking about with their peers and experiencing some of that when they're out on their playground with their friends, but I've heard from parents that how kids are coming home talking about these things, even if we stick on the topic of dinosaurs, my son or my daughter is so excited. I'm learning all these new facts about dinosaurs. Or if you're in kindergarten, I'm learning all these new facts about toys and trees. And so just that connection to home, that Inc, that kids are learning this vocab, and now they're going home and using that vocabulary in conversations with their family, I just think is so cool.
I agree. I feel like when we were in school, we would go home like we learned nothing. Yeah, what'd you learn today? Nothing. And now kids are excited to share that learning, right? So times are changing.
It makes me think about like how other curriculums might be designed, because there is a difference, right? Some of them are designed around themes or strategies or things like that, but going back to that knowledge building curriculum, it's designed around a topic, and kids go deep into that topic, and when they go deep, they have a lot to talk about. So it's really kind of cool to see them bringing it home. It's what we want,
all right? So we're talking about dinosaurs and all these fun topics. I have some of my favorites. As you think about the grades you supported, most of us are K through five. Think for a minute What have been some of your favorite topics that you've seen these modules organized around, I'm
gonna go with freaky frogs in third grade. Yeah, that's a good one. They love designing those Pokemon cards,
trading them with friends. Yes,
I have to go with birds. Oh, the first graders are so excited to learn about birds. They're outside on the playground, and they're looking for bird feathers and looking at the sky to see what birds are flying by. And they're just very excited. And I've learned so much about birds.
Yeah, I think I'm going to stick with first grade too. Tools is one of my favorites. I was in a conversation with a mom and her son the other day, and they're talking about tools, and this young boy was talking about how in classroom, his teacher had brought in a spatula to turn the cookies, and we just had conversations about just so many the ways that tools are used, even in the fun act of making cookies and then toys in kindergarten is a fun one too. I mean, what kindergartner does not want to come to school on the first day? And learn about toys. I mean, that just sounds fun,
and thinking about the upper l animal adaptations, yeah, I've been in a lot of classrooms around that module, and it is really fun, and they're getting really into it, so it's nice to listen and learn along with them.
All right. Well, it is time for small steps. Jackie, as you think about our listeners, some who may be jumping into El education for the first time, others who have been using this curriculum for years, if you could invite them to be mindful of one thing when thinking about building background knowledge, what small step would you invite them to consider?
I think I would have them consider getting messy, for sure, because that's where learning really takes place. You know, get the kids talking, get them playing, get them discovering, get them doing, because all of that is going to play a role in how they read later, when they read about those topics. So get messy, roll up your sleeves.
I think that's great advice.
Well, there you go, a small step to consider over the next few weeks as you get back into the work, as we close up this episode, we hope you got some fuel in the tank and lead with some fresh energy for the weeks ahead. And we're going to close things off today with high fives and hitchhikers. Here's the cool thing, we have the power to re energize and refuel those around us. So find a colleague. It could be the person next door. It could be the person across the hall. Maybe it's in another grade. Find that colleague give them a high five, tell them you got this. Remind them you're a rock star, and pick them up as a hitchhiker. Invite them to join the conversation and take a seat with us at the table. All the best, and see you next time on fuel road you