Schema Activated

Our T. D. class is always amazing me. We've been talking about how good readers will make predictions, ask questions, activate schema or use their background knowledge to make connections. I was reading a wonderful book called Jin Woo, by Eve Bunting. It was about a boy whose parents were about to adopt a baby boy from Korea. In this story, the family is eating at a restaurant the night before they are going to go to the airport to pick up their new baby boy from another country. While the students were looking at the picture, Sarah's face lit up, and she began waving her hand for me to call on her. I knew she couldn't wait until I read the page, so when I called on her to share, she exclaimed, "The words on the window in that restaurant are Korean, and it says noodles." She then told us that she can speak and read in Korean. Her schema was activated, and by using her background knowledge she was able to enlighten us, and help us to better understand the text. We all come to school each day with so many different experiences about places we've been, things we've done, and none of us have the same experiences.