6.+K-W-L

//K-W-L Pre-Reading - Intitiating Strategy//

A K-W-L Chart can help students reflect upon and evaluate their learning experience. It also serves as a useful assessment piece for the teacher. This strategy provides an opportunity to activate and build prior knowledge, to elicit student responses when establishing purposes for reading, and for allowing students to summarize what they learned. A K-W-L Chart is useful in many courses: math, science, history, Language Arts. I used it for my inclusion, regular learners, and accelerated students in a lesson on understanding the Holocaust prior to our reading of the play in our literature books, “The Diary of Anne Frank.” All level of learners can benefit from this reading strategy. It allows students to connect to prior knowledge about the Holocaust from the “What they already Know aspect of the strategy’s structure. They What they would like to Know is an opportunity to ask questions and make new connections about the Holocaust. The last, What they Learned, is the last aspect of the strategy’s structure that allows students to summarize what they learned. All students can benefit from this organized analysis. This format really breaks the learning process down and is helpful for the struggling student especially to think about what and how they learned. Students can benefit from the organized method of this strategy. It is advisable to conduct a specific lesson and give homework to investigate and/or research the particular topic. I have students go on-line and research Anne Frank [] [] and go to the Holocaust Museum website [] to find information. That way students have a set research assignment to complete. I like the Stephens and Brown book on page 85 that said a variation to the K part of the strategy is to phrase the question: What do I Think I already Know? Or What do I think I Remember? Other teachers leave the question in tact, but surround the question with question marks. Also for middle school, students may have better responses if the middle letter W is changed to N for: What do I NEED to Know? This idea is taken from the Stephens and Brown book as well.
 * ** Rationale: **
 * ** Courses in which it could be implemented: **
 * ** Diverse learners: **
 * ** Procedure: **
 * 1) The teacher introduces KWL and models how to use it with a new topic or new reading selection.
 * 2) Individually, in pairs, or in small groups, students brainstorm what they already know about the topic of, in this case, the Holocaust.
 * 3) This information is recorded on a piece of poster or white paper for all to see. During class discussion, the teacher models how to organize and categorize their responses and how to use this information to set purposes for their reading.
 * 4) The teacher leads the class into the next phase, during which the students generate a list of what else they want to learn or questions they want answered. Again the teacher models how to organize and categorize their responses and how to use this information to set purposes for their reading.
 * 5) Students then read with the purpose of discovering information to answer the questions they generated.
 * 6) This information is recorded and displayed. Again the teacher models how to reflect upon the entire learning experience.
 * ** Potential Issues: **
 * ** References (Bibliography Information & **

Anne Frank : [] [] and go to the Holocaust Museum website: [] Stephens, E., C. & Brown, J. E. (2005). A handbook of content literacy strategies: 125 practical reading and writing ideas. //Strategies for initiating// (pp. 84-85). Norwood, MA: Christopher - Gordon

(**All Cross Referenced in the E-portfolio Reading in the Content Area 465 Resources Binder.)