Today's students are more than diverse than ever, and schools experience enormous force per unit area to meet all of their literacy needs. The importance of systematic and explicit phonics educational activity has received plenty of printing lately, but there'due south some other crucial slice to the literacy puzzle: Background knowledge and vocabulary are too key drivers in students' reading success. Building literacy with content learning in an early literacy program is a valuable strategy.

"Comprehension is intimately intertwined with knowledge," says literacy scholar Daniel T. Willingham. Actively edifice students' content cognition helps promote literacy success for all students. Hither'due south why:

1. Early content-based reading experiences help fill holes and build a strong foundation.

Teachers attempt not to make assumptions near their students, just it can still be surprising to discover knowledge gaps. A student reading a book on windy atmospheric condition may not know how a kite works. A educatee reading about the American Revolution may have never learned about George Washington or other important people in American history. Content-based texts are ideal for helping teachers gauge students' vocabulary and knowledge, and build those skills during structured reading lessons.

With an intentional text sequence, students can describe upon information and vocabulary learned previously as they learn to read. A student who has read about Jamestown volition connect more closely when reading about American colonial towns.

2. Connecting instruction to children's lives helps them leverage what they already know to access new data.

Using informational text to requite students a mutual foundation can empower them. Information technology helps them make connections to new concepts, build new mental schemas, and reflect on their own ideas and linguistic communication use. Request students about their knowledge nearly a topic builds bridges between prior knowledge and new concepts. When yous are about to teach a topic like life cycles, it'due south of import to enquire kids what they already know most how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. When kids begin to share what they already know and learn how to organize that information, they can motion on to applying that knowledge base and vocabulary to access new texts and content.

3. Spending more time building content knowledge levels the playing field.

The effects of focusing exclusively on literacy skills hurts those at the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum. As writes Natalie Wexler in her book The Noesis Gap, "Children from more than educated families often absorb knowledge about the world at dwelling. But those from less educated families have to rely on schools for the kind of noesis that will equip them to do well on tests—not to mention in high school, college, and life." The longer kids have to wait to build content knowledge, the further behind they get. Past the time they go to middle or loftier school, they melody out or lack the conviction to ask the necessary questions.

four. Acquiring content knowledge can spark passion and purpose.

Content cognition gained through reading can inspire kids and open their optics to a range of topics, including science, history, culture, places, and more. A book may inspire an insatiable curiosity most sea creatures for a educatee who lives in a landlocked location. A worm-loving student who reads about composting may exist motivated to suggest a trial program at a school that'due south not yet sustainability savvy.

Content knowledge can also spark a kid's passion for reading itself. Some research —and plenty of anecdotal bear witness from educators—indicates that informational text engages some students in a way that fiction does not. Some students don't consider themselves readers until they observe the ability of "reading to learn." What this ways is that kids engage more and learn faster when teachers build their literacy programs on content learning.

Thanks to our friends at Dilate Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) for sponsoring this post and for helping educators utilize advisory texts during literacy instruction. Explore their resources.