The following strategy is designed to stimulate use of a student's prior knowledge. Prior knowledge is a powerful resource students use to understand text. Research indicates that students with prior knowledge of particular topics remember more information than do students with little or no prior knowledge.
Students' use of these strategies is not automatic or procedural. And when they practice using these strategies, they do not use a rote set of steps. Instead students learn to use the strategies in methodical phases in a stop-start fashion before, during, and after reading. (Strategic Teaching and Reading Project, 1995)