Picture Books to Teach Activating Prior Knowledge

Let’s talk about books to teach activating prior knowledge in your elementary reading lessons!

First of all, what is prior knowledge? It is the information that you already know about a topic from past experiences or lessons.

Why Use Books to Teach Activating Prior Knowledge

So as an elementary teacher, I most often think of prior knowledge of only being used in the context of reading, BUT it can be used in so many ways! Here are some examples of using prior knowledge both in educational ways and in real life:

packing for a trip
getting ingredients for a recipe
making a hypothesis for a science experiment
getting dressed appropriately for an activity
applying math skills to solve a word problem

It is fun and meaningful to practice activating prior knowledge during a literacy read aloud. (Want to know more about my interactive read alouds? Read all about it here!) Students can get their minds ready to make sense of the text and best comprehend what they are reading.

Reading comprehension lesson plans excel when students think about important topics or ideas in the text before and during reading helps students soak in the text and deepen their understanding.

Read my 3 tips for having more fun teaching reading here!

How To Pick A Book To Practice Activating Prior Knowledge

I share many suggestions of books below that you can use for literacy with school age kids! Some things to think about when you are making your reading comprehension lesson plans to focus on prior knowledge:

Are there any topics you know students have prior knowledge about from lessons with you?
They do not need to know everything about a topic, even a small detail helps!
What topics have they shown interest in that they would like to learn more about?

Are you wondering if you should be using fiction or non fiction?

You can use BOTH fiction and informational texts to practice activating prior knowledge! The importance of prior knowledge is recalling information you know related to a topic in the text. For example, when reading a fiction book that takes place on a farm, it is helpful for students to brainstorm their schema related to farm.

Wordless Picture Books

A wordless picture book is a book with very few or no words. The story is told and left to interpretation through the illustrations. This can be a perfect way to encourage nonreaders to participate in read aloud discussions and feel confident applying reading strategies!

ideas for books teaching 2nd grade literacy prior knowledge

Chalk

Topics: drawing, chalk, imagination

Blackout

Topics: electricity, flashlights, houses

The Lion & The Mouse

Topics: lions, mice, grasslands

I Walk With Vanessa

Topics: bystander, community

Picture Books

When I choose picture books to teach activating for my class, I am reading them aloud so I do not worry if they are the appropriate decoding level of my students to read independently. We are focusing on listening comprehension and discussing reading strategies, not their independent instruction.

For teaching activating schema, I prioritize choosing books that I know my students have prior knowledge about those topics. Here are some we love: