Of course you can use this strategy with any text you are reading with your students. It is especially useful if you suspect that students will have trouble with a text. Activating their prior knowledge will help students with both word level and overall comprehension. This applies to both fiction and non-fiction texts. To help students get the most out of content-area reading for meaning, be sure to activate prior knowledge!

Here is a list of suggested books you might want to use as you introduce the strategy of activating prior knowledge. Their content and format make them particularly suited to making the strategy explicit to children.

These are outstanding trade books chosen for us by the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The list includes engaging titles that meet a range of reading and listening abilities. You may also print the complete list with suggested books for all strategies: Reading to Understand: Children's Books to Use with Comprehension Strategies. Then find multimedia, online resources about these books and authors using the Into the Book List at TeachingBooks.net.

Children's Books to Help You Teach the Prior Knowledge Strategy

Andrews-Goebel, Nancy. The Pot That Juan Built. Illustrated by David Diaz. Lee & Low, 2001. 32 pages

Arnosky, Jim. All about Rattlesnakes. Scholastic, 1997. 28 pages

Brenner, Barbara. Thinking about Ants. Illustrated by Carol Schwartz. Mondo, 1997. 32 pages

Florian, Douglas. Bow Wow Meow Meow: It's Rhyming Cats and Dogs. Harcourt, 2003. 48 pages

Gibbons, Gail. My Soccer Book. HarperCollins, 2001. 32 pages (also available: My Baseball Book, My Basketball Book, My Football Book)

Hartman, Bob. The Wolf Who Cried Boy. Illustrated by Tim Raglin. Putnam, 2002. 32 pages

Hausherr, Rosemary. What Instrument Is This? Scholastic, 1992. 38 pages

Jenkins, Steve and Robin Page. What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? Houghton Mifflin, 2003. 32 pages

Ross, Alice and Kent. The Copper Lady. Illustrated by Leslie Bowman. Carolrhoda, 1997. 56 pages

Prelutsky, Jack, compiler. The Beauty of the Beast: Poems from the Animal Kingdom. Illustrated by Meilo So. Random House, 1997. 101 pages

Trivizas, Eugene. The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. Illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. Margaret K. McElderry, 1993. 32 pages

Takabayashi, Mari. I Live in Tokyo. Houghton Mifflin, 2001. 32 pages

Waldman, Neil. The Snowflake: A Water Cycle Story. Millbrook, 2003. 32 pages

Compiled by Megan Schliesman
Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison

For another list of books for strategy instruction and practice, see Strategies that Work.