Education question
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I need a 250-300 word response with 2-3 references.
Watch “Building Background.”
Jana Echevarría discusses the components of building background. You will also see a
classroom teacher modeling what it looks like in an elementary classroom.
•
How did she address each of the components and how might you plan for the
components in your own SIOP® lesson?
Building Background
Dr. Jana Echevarria: The Building Background component has 3 features. The first feature is that
concepts are explicitly linked to students’ background. Tapping into students’ background
experiences and knowledge and linking that to the lesson is a powerful way of making lessons
relevant and meaningful to students. Effective SIOP teachers use specific examples from
students’ own lives and tie that into the lesson. The second feature is that there are explicit links
between past learning and new concepts. Students aren’t always aware of the scope and sequence
of teaching, so we need to explicitly talk about what was taught previously, teach the lesson, and
talk about what will come next. The third feature is that key vocabulary is emphasized.
Vocabulary has a tremendous impact on almost every aspect of learning as well as developing
English proficiency. So we need to have explicit vocabulary instruction as part of every lesson.
English learners benefit from having new words introduced, pronounced, written for them to see,
and reinforcing context throughout the lesson. This provides opportunity for multiple exposure to
the words and their meaning.
Let’s join Kimberly Howland as she discusses her third grade reading lesson. Her class of 21
students is comprised of 11 English learners, ranging from beginning to intermediate level, and
10 native English speakers.
Kimberly Howland: Some of the ways that I use Building Background in my lessons are to link
the new learning to previous learning. We had a unit on incredible stories, and we had read
previously several stories that then became foundational to the new story that I was introducing
to them.
Kimberly: Boys and girls, as you know we’re working on a theme of incredible stories. Do you
remember that?
All: Yes.
Kimberly: Okay. Well today’s lesson we’re going to start a new story, and we’re going to work
today on the vocabulary for the story. So let’s read all together our content objective.
All: I can explain the meaning of my vocabulary words by producing a vocabulary flip book.
Kimberly: Okay. Our language objective together please.
All: I can listen to and read multiple stepped directions to accurately make my vocabulary flip
book.
Kimberly: Okay, boys and girls, as a reminder let’s look at what our genre is of our story today.
Everybody say it together.
All: Fantasy.
Kimberly: Fantasy. Turn to your partner, please, and tell your partner what is it that makes
fantasy different than other stories. Go.
Student: Time, and it’s not real.
Student: Some stories tell about things that count not happen in real life.
Kimberly: I made reference in the lesson to gardens that the students had visited, [background
conversation] and I had them speak to their partner about experiences that they had, everything
that they knew about gardens, and then we as a whole group discussed those things.
Kimberly: The name of our story that we’re going to work on is called The Garden of Abdul
Gasazi. So what we’re going to do right now is we’re going to talk about any gardens that you
might have visited. So when I say go, would you turn to your partner and tell your partner
everything you know about gardens. Go.
Student: You got to give them food with the water.
Student: And to have those stuff, you need to have seeds to plant them in the ground to make
them grow.
Student: And you’re supposed to put some soil on top of the seed so they can grow.
Kimberly: What are some of the things that you were talking about to your partner? What have
you seen in a garden before? Joel, what was something you saw?
Joel: Corn?
Kimberly: You saw corn growing in a garden. Okay, thank you. Yes.
Student: Uh, pumpkins?
Kimberly: Pumpkins, nice. Lizbeth?
Lizbeth: Carrots.
Kimberly: Carrots. Gio?
Gio: Um, roses?
Kimberly: Roses. So some of you were describing food that you ate, and then Gio was talking
about flowers. Has anyone ever seen anything that looked like it wasn’t a plant, but it was still in
the garden? Has anyone seen a garden like that? Emily, what did you see?
Emily: I’ve once seen a rock garden that only had rocks in it.
Kimberly: Nice. I’ll bet it was beautiful, bet it was beautiful. How many of you have ever seen
gardens that have statues or birdbaths or benches? Have you ever been in one of those kind of
gardens before? Yeah, those are very nice. Turn to your partner and talk about what you would
do in those kinds of gardens. What would you do?
Student: You can play with
Student: Play with the birds.
Kimberly: One of the things Tony and Bert and I talked about is that in a garden that has a bench
or a birdbath or statues, you might take a book there and sit and read, or you might take some
birdseed there, and you might… What would you do with the birdseed?
All: Feed the birds.
Kimberly: Feed the birds. So, are there different kinds of gardens for different reasons?
All: Yes.
Kimberly: There are. One of the stories that we’re going to read before we get into The Garden of
Abdul Gasazi is a little story called The Unusual Garden. Now you just talked about things
you’ve seen before in the garden and some things that you may or may not find there or you may
or may not do there. If the title of the story is The Unusual Garden, I would like you to make a
prediction right now of what you think you’ll find in this story. Talk to your partner.
Student: You’ll see like different things that are in different gardens.
Student: A head of a statue?
Kimberly: Oh, that was in that last story, right? Remember that? I wonder if we’ll find that head
in this story.
Kimberly: The techniques that I use to emphasize the key vocabulary words that we were
focusing on are charts in the front of the class and the back of the class for easy accessibility. It
had the words, and it also had the definition on them. We also had—we were also making a flip
book so that they could use the flip book to help further their understanding of each of the words,
and they also had a vocabulary packet that that they had, that each person had, that was available
to them whenever they needed that they could use as a reference to remember what the word is
and what it means.
Kimberly: Before we get into our story, we are going to explore the vocabulary that is in the
story, and we have 6 words, okay? I need hands down right now. Thank you. These are our 6
words that we have. They are in our story, The Unusual Garden, but they are also in the story of
The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, so we will find them in both places, and according to our objective,
what did we say we were going to do with our vocabulary words? [Background conversation]
We’re going to explain the meaning, and what are we—what’s our tool going to be? [Background
conversation] We’re going to make a flip book. Let me show you what we’re going to do on the
inside of the flip book. When—remember when you drew those lines? Okay? Well, what you’re
going to do is you’re going to in each one of the sections, you’re going to do something. You’re
going to do something in 3 sections. Do you see how this one down here is blank?
All: Yes.
Kimberly: We’re going to do something with that later. So today we won’t be using this section.
So up here in this corner, you’re going to put the definition. Over on this side you’re going to use
the word in a sentence. So you’re going to make up a sentence. So let’s say we had the word
discovered. Who can think of a sentence that they could use the word discovered in the sentence?
Saul.
Saul: People were hiking, and they discovered a very rare snake.
Kimberly: Good job. Yes. That would be a perfect example of a sentence you might write in this
corner. Then on the bottom on the left side, you’re going to draw a sketch that helps you
remember what the word means. Now, I’m going to pass out your vocabulary packets, and in the
vocabulary packets, which we’ve used in the past, all of the words are in here. You’re only going
to use your 6, but you can use the definition instead of trying to look at the chart, and also on
some of the words, there’s a little picture that might be helpful to you if you can’t quite think of a
picture to sketch. Okay? So think a minute. Think about what I asked you to do. Who can repeat
the directions for me and tell me what we’re going to do? Okay, Chris, go ahead.
Chris: We’re going to do the definition, and then you’re going to write a sentence of it, and then
you’re going to sketch whatever it says, and then just put it down.
Kimberly: Okay. I like using the flip books, and I believe that the students got a lot of practice
with the vocabulary today. They had the opportunity to write the meaning, use the word in a
sentence, and then create a sketch that would help them connect to the meaning of the word.
We’re later in the next few days going to have the opportunity to take some notes on the word,
and that’s what that blank space was left for. What I would like to add about Building
Background, and it’s important, is that the more time that is spent building background and
linking prior knowledge to the new knowledge, the better the children will have, or the better
understanding they will have to the new information that you are then going to present. Building
Background is the foundation for their understanding, and so spending the time here is very
important.
…
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