How Pop Culture Increases Student Engagement and Reading Comprehension

Introduction

Background knowledge is undeniably the most important factor needed to increase reading comprehension in any content area (Sabatini & Wang,2019). Unfortunately, the opportunity to provide background knowledge for students in an introductory lesson and throughout instructional units is often overlooked or omitted in the elementary school classroom. Many times, teachers do not plan the background knowledge component of a literacy lesson. One reason is because classroom teachers do not fully understand the value of providing examples of background knowledge to students prior to a lesson.

In education, we often assume that students have successfully learned a certain objective in previous years, or at the very least, have heard of the concept. In teaching reading, however, it is essential that we assume nothing. When we start thinking in this mindset, we create better lessons that are rich in content and provide real-life experiences and background knowledge for children. This leads to a deeper level of comprehension. Another reason that teachers do not often plan background knowledge in reading instruction is because they simply do not know how to plan and execute the literacy lesson. Implementing pop culture into an introductory lesson is a most effective way to get students interested in learning while making the instruction relevant, engaging, and culturally responsive (Alvermann, 2011). Throughout this chapter, teachers will learn the importance of tapping into a child’s prior experiences or background knowledge to help students gain the full understanding of a topic or subject matter by using pop culture.

Before reading any text, children should be encouraged to make predictions based on the title and pictures of any text (Starke, 2017). The author observe the power of this strategy during daily small group and whole group reading lesson. The importance of this strategy is evident in this example of a first-grade small group guided reading lesson. Students were asked to make a prediction based on the title A New House. The author went around the table asking each child to share his or her prediction. The responses varied based on the students’ experiences. Responses included the idea that a new baby may have been born and they have to move, that the dad’s job is transferring him to a new state, and that the family is being evicted. A child’s predictions are close indicators of a child’s life experiences.

During and after reading the text, students should confirm their predictions. Even at the end of a story, students should predict what they think will happen next. Another way to increase comprehension and use background knowledge is to have students make personal connections, text to text connections, or text to world connections after reading everything. Children love to talk about themselves and their experiences (Starke, 2017); this is the opportunity for them to do so through conversation or writing. These practices help teachers recognize the background knowledge a student has on a subject matter; this information can assist them in their planning of a unit or specific learning objectives.

Nonfiction texts consistently have a lower comprehension rate than fiction texts, especially in low income areas (Beers & Probst, 2016). This is often because children have a lack of background knowledge in history, science, geography, or other informational content. When we understand that background knowledge has a direct correlation to reading comprehension, this fact makes perfect sense. Asking students to make connections and provide the information they have on a science or social studies topic should also be frequent component of any lesson using nonfiction text (Beers & Probst, 2016).

Paired texts are a powerful way to bring science and social studies curriculum to life (Garrison, 2016). Combining a fictional story with an informational text on the same topic is an effective way to implement the use of paired texts in the classroom. Using songs, poems, and stories to teach the same concept or theme is another way to implement the use of paired texts. In addition to sharing video content, stories, or real-life experiences with students to teach a learning target, elements of pop culture can easily be infused throughout any lesson to accelerate student learning (Alvermann, 2011). The sections that follow provide elementary educators with practical ideas and a solid template or structure to help teachers brainstorm the countless ideas to weave pop culture into their instructional practices.