For example, studies have shown that individual differences in prior knowledge affect the ability to extract explicit and implicit information from text and integrate this text-based information in reading comprehension (Kintsch, 1988). This research builds on a large body of work that has shown the effects of background knowledge and comprehension (Anderson & Nagy,1992 Anderson & Pearson, 1984). Taken together, these results suggest that differences in low-SES children’s comprehension skills may be attributed, in part, to limitations in their preexisting knowledge base. When we held background knowledge constant by introducing an unknown topic, there were no significant differences between SES groups in children’s word learning, comprehension, or ability to make inferences. In this case, there were no differences between groups ( t(56) = .57, p =. And our results sustained our hypothesis about background knowledge and comprehension. For this study, we created an 18-page illustrated storybook similar to the one we used in our previous study-with one difference: The storybook used a novel category, wugs (a pseudo-word), and was designed around the adventures of four species of wugs.
Here was our reasoning: If children’s preexisting background knowledge underlies these differences in comprehension, then we would expect that there would be no differences in learning among our differing SES groups. 46).Ĭonsequently, in our third study, we attempted to neutralize background knowledge by introducing a storybook narrative context that would be novel to both groups. 050), with a moderate effect size (Cohen’s d =. These children demonstrated significantly poorer comprehension of the text ( t(75) = 1.99, p =. Using a receptive comprehension measure that examined children’s understanding of critical story events and their ability to make causal inferences, we found once again that the low-SES children experienced greater difficulty comprehending the story than their middle-SES peers. The book had a total of 238 words and shared a common plot and story grammar, including the setting (i.e., a house), problem, response, and resolution. So, to tap how these differences in background knowledge might relate to comprehension in text, we created an 18-page illustrated storybook in our second experiment that featured the adventures of four types of birds (named for extinct species): the moa, faroe, cupido, and kona. Low-SES children had significantly more limited background knowledge than their middle-class peers.
The experiment revealed stark differences in knowledge about birds between the two groups: ( t(43) = 3.22, p =.
Can a toma live in a nest?” and other items in a similar format. In the first experiment, we assessed low- and middle-SES children’s background knowledge about birds by creating a task with fictional characters and names: “This is a toma. The contribution of background knowledge to children’s comprehension became all that more clear for us in a recent three-part experiment including 4-year olds from low- and middle-SES (socioeconomic status) families (Kaefer, Neuman, & Pinkham, in press). Previous studies (Alexander, Kulikowich, & Schulze, 1994 Shapiro, 2004) have shown that background knowledge plays an enormous role in reading comprehension (Hirsch, 2003). Put simply, the more you know about a topic, the easier it is to read a text, understand it, and retain the information. There is a virtual consensus that background knowledge is essential for reading comprehension. We’ve had our share of lively debates in the field of reading, but not on this particular topic: background knowledge.
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