1. SIOP Component #2: Building Background
Key Elementary School
October 16, 2008
Robin Liten-Tejada

2. Sheltered Instruction
The
SIOP
Model
Lesson Preparation
Building Background
Comprehensible
Input
Strategies
Interaction
Practice &
Application
Lesson
Delivery
Review &
Assessment
The SIOP Model of
Sheltered Instruction
©2006 Pearson Achievement Solutions, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

3. Enduring Understandings
Building background and activating prior knowledge form the hook upon which new learning hangs.
The most effective teaching and learning begin with a meaningful concrete experience.
Emphasizing key vocabulary strengthens students’ ability to understand academic concepts.

4. Content Objectives:
Participants will be able to
Experience and identify strategies to build background, and make links between past learning and new concepts
Identify three types of academic language
Plan effective background building activities

5. Language Objectives
Participants will be able to
Oral - Share thoughts with a partner; listen for information
Reading – Make predictions, make inferences
Writing – Write a reflection; jot ideas in note form; write a lesson plan

6. What background knowledge is necessary to understand this cartoon?
Think & Share: Think about the meaning of this cartoon. Share your ideas with your partner.
Have you had an experience with a lack of background knowledge in your class?

7. Connect to your life
Think about your own situation. Spend a few minutes writing or drawing a picture about how the financial crisis has impacted you.

8. Bridge to the new learning….
We keep hearing about economy and the “Wall Street meltdown”, so we’re going to study this very important topic.
What facts do you KNOW about the financial crisis?
What QUESTIONS do you have about the financial crisis?

9. Vocabulary Preview Wall Street Stock market Standard & Poor Dow Jones
Do you know these words?
Do a self-assessment:
Never seen it before
I’ve seen it, but don’t know what it means
I know what the word refers to, but don’t know the exact meaning
I know the word well!
Wall Street
Stock market
Standard & Poor
Dow Jones
Fannie Mae
Freddie Mac
Mortgage
Debt

10. Predict the definitions!
a) provides information on the strength of 30 high quality businesses
b) loan to purchase real estate
c) organized buying and selling of ownership units in corporations
d) Federal National Mortgage Association – provides support for home ownership among low to middle income Americans
e) something owed, usually money
f) financial district in New York City
g) Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation - provides money support home ownership and rental housing
h) provides information on the strength of 500 representative businesses

11. Were your predictions correct?
Wall Street
Stock market
Standard & Poor
Dow Jones
Fannie Mae
Freddie Mac
Mortgage
Debt
f) financial district in New York City
c) organized buying and selling of ownership units in corporations
h) provides information on the strength of 500 representative businesses
a) provides information on the strength of 30 high quality businesses
d) Federal National Mortgage Association – provides support for home ownership among low to middle income Americans
g) Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation - provides money support home ownership and rental housing
b) loan to purchase real estate
e) something owed, usually money

12. Start with the SELF - Create a personal hook to hang future learning
What did you just experience?
- started with a visual
- started with your personal experience
- did KW after creating the experience
- introduced key vocabulary but didn’t just tell you the definitions
Starting with a personal experience creates hooks to hang future learning!

13. Building Background
Concepts explicitly linked to students’ background experiences
Links explicitly made between past learning and new concepts
Key vocabulary emphasized (e.g. introduced, written, repeated, and highlighted for students to see

14. Ways to Link New Concepts to Prior Experience and Build Background
Start with a personal hook to hang future knowledge!
How many of these strategies are already part of your repertoire?
What other strategies do you use?

15. Effective Strategies to Build Background
Read a Story
Simulation
Realia
Write/tell about
an experience
Visuals
Anything else?
Pose a Question

16. Process/Function Words Structure Words and Word Parts
Language for processes, tasks, transitions, sequence
Content Words
Key terms associated with the topic
Academic Language
Structure Words and Word Parts
Words that enable students to learn new vocabulary based on word formation

17. list
graph
classify
summarize
first
then
Content Words
Process/Function Words
photosynthesis
photograph
photocopy
return
review
recycle
Structure Words and Word Parts
community
living
non-living
George Washington
multiply
triangle

18. Now for some practice….

19. Think of a topic you teach
Think of a topic you teach. Answer the following three key questions to plan effective background activities for your lessons

20. Start with a personal experience to connect to students’ own lives
What concrete experience will introduce the topic, activate background knowledge and help make a meaningful connection to students’ lives and prior learning?
Example Topic: The financial crisis
View political cartoon. Students tell their interpretations to a partner. Students write or draw how the financial crisis has impacted their lives.
How will students analyze and reflect on this concrete experience?
Students will share their experience with a partner.

21. Bridge to the new learning
How will you make the connection between the concrete experience and the new concept, while previewing the topic and emphasizing the key vocabulary?
Example: Students will complete a K-W chart listing what they already know about the financial crisis, and what they would like to know or what questions they have.
Students will preview key vocabulary by completing a self-assessment and predicting definitions.