New Teacher Talk welcomes Dr. Virginia (Ginny) Shank, an assistant professor of reading and former elementary classroom teacher and reading specialist, for a conversation about one of the most overlooked drivers of student learning: background knowledge. Hosted by Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran, this episode connects the research to three concrete strategies you can use across grade levels and subjects.
Dr. Shank grounds the discussion in Scarborough's Reading Rope, where background knowledge is the very first strand of language comprehension and, in her view, one of the most frequently skipped. Using schema theory and a memorable closet-hanger analogy, she explains why new information sticks when students can attach it to something they already know, and why working memory gets overwhelmed when it cannot. Her example of third graders who could decode a text about mailboxes but had never seen a roadside mailbox with a flag makes the stakes clear: sometimes what looks like a reading problem is really a knowledge gap, and we have to be careful not to accidentally assess background knowledge instead of the skill we are actually teaching.
From there she offers three practical strategies. Create an experience, from a science demonstration to cooling water to North Atlantic temperatures so students can feel what the Titanic's passengers faced. Access prior knowledge and peer learning through class discussion, KWL charts, anticipation guides, and quick writes. And pre-teach with visuals, virtual field trips, curated text sets from your librarian, interactive read-alouds, and vocabulary moves like possible sentences and story impressions. She closes on equity: building background knowledge is not just support for struggling students, it is what gives every learner, including a student newly arrived from Morocco, a genuine way into new content.
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Resources mentioned:
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