Ask your kindergartener, “What is schema?” and they will likely point to their brain and respond with, “It’s the stuff already inside your brain!” In our class, kindergarten students have been discussing what schema means and how we can use it when reading or listening to a story. Schema can also be understood as prior knowledge. It includes everything in your brain that you can draw upon to make connections to something new. This encompasses the places you’ve been, the stories you’ve read, the people you know, the movies you’ve watched, your past experiences, and more.
To enhance their understanding, students created self-portraits incorporating elements that represent their connections. As a class, we’ve practiced making relevant connections to our schema, using it to enhance our understanding of nonfiction books, fiction books, and a character’s feelings or actions. Students are becoming increasingly skilled at using their schema to understand stories better.
Questions you can use to activate your child’s schema at home include:
- What does this story remind you of?
- Has something like this ever happened to you?
- Have you ever felt this way before?
- How did you feel when something similar happened to you? How did you act?
- What connections can you make to your prior knowledge?
