The K-W-L-H teaching technique is a good method to help students activate prior knowledge. It is a group instruction activity developed by Donna Ogle (1986) that serves as a model for active thinking during reading.
W - Stands for helping students determine what they WANT to learn.
L - Stands for helping students identify what they LEARN as they read.
H - Stands for HOW we can learn more (other sources where additional information on the topic can be found).
Students complete the "categories" section at the bottom of the graphic organizer by
asking themselves what each statement in the "L" section (What We Learned) describes.
They use these categories and the information in the "H" section (How Can We Learn
More) to learn more about the topic. Students also can use the categories to create
additional graphic organizers. They can use the organizers to review and write about
what they've learned.
Dinosaurs
| What We Know | What We Want to Find Out | What We Learned | How Can We Learn More |
|
Dinosaurs are large. Dinosaurs are dead. They lived a long time ago. There is a movie about dinosaurs |
How long ago did they live? Why did they die? How do we know what they looked like? Who are the people who study dinosaurs? |
An archeologist has an exciting life. Dinosaurs eat plants and some eat meat. Some dinosaurs were gigantic, but had small brains. Fossils uncover dinosaur traits.
|
Research Museums Field Trips Archeological digs Videos Internet computer search |
|
Categories of Information we expect to use:
|
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Debbie Blaskowski, a fourth-grade teacher at the Weyerhaeuser School in Weyerhaeuser, Wisconsin, developed a lesson using KWHL (a slight modification of KWLH) and other graphic organizers to activate students' prior knowledge.
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