Since prior knowledge is positively linked with reading comprehension, methods of measuring prior knowledge are important. A word association test is a useful technique for evaluating topic familiarity and enables the teacher to make decisions about how much additional information is needed for students to process a text successfully. (SRT)

Discusses common flaws in Anticipation Guide statements (teacher generated statements, used in teaching expository reading, about a topic that students respond to before reading about that topic). Offers guidelines for writing statements and examples of ineffective and effective statements. (SR)

Describes a teaching method that combines the concepts of the structural overview and concept attainment in order to help students read content area textbooks. (FL)

Argues that using reading strategies in mathematics classes can help students understand mathematical concepts. Discusses five principles for mathematics teachers to use in incorporating reading strategies in the classroom. (RS)

Explores research on the efficacy of previewing before reading to build background knowledge. Offers guidelines for presenting a preview to students. (HTH)

Describes a brainstorming/conceptualization activity suitable for adult, secondary, and college levels which serves as a preliminary exercise to test students' prior knowledge and to activate a schema for deeper immersion into a text. Describes how students use the activities to construct a sentence which defines the purpose of their textbook. (RS)

Describes 10 categories of inferences and proposes a three-step procedure for teaching students to make inferences while reading. (HOD)

Explains how a teacher can prepare students to read content area material by helping them bring prior knowledge about a topic to memory. (AEA)

Describes a metacognitive approach to improving vocabulary. The method trains students to establish a network of relationships among words and relate the words to personal experiences. (HOD)

Presents methods to stimulate students to use their background knowledge in reading content area texts. Offers a technique to teach students common text structures by having them write to a model. (FL)

Explains semantic feature analysis, a technique that helps students learn a new vocabulary by seeing how words are alike and how they are different. (HOD)

Describes vocabulary lesson sequences that were used to teach sixth, seventh, and eighth grade remedial readers economics vocabulary from the newspaper. (HOD)

Describes activities used in a 12th-grade literature classroom that develops students' prior knowledge to help them connect to the literature before reading it. (SR)

Describes a schema-theoretic view of how analogies enhance students' prior knowledge; reviews some of the recent studies using analogies to assist students' comprehension of science text; and illustrates the use of an analogical study guide in biology. (HOD)

Argues that new vocabulary words should be presented in concept clusters and related to prior knowledge to facilitate organization in memory. Presents a sample lesson for science vocabulary. (HOD)