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Reading Psychology
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The Role of Background Knowledge in Reading
Comprehension: A Critical Review
Reid Smith , Pamela Snow , Tanya Serry & Lorraine Hammond
To cite this article: Reid Smith , Pamela Snow , Tanya Serry & Lorraine Hammond (2021):
The Role of Background Knowledge in Reading Comprehension: A Critical Review, Reading
Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/02702711.2021.1888348
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02702711.2021.1888348
Published online: 22 Feb 2021.
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The Role of Background Knowledge in Reading
Comprehension: A Critical Review
Reid Smith
a
, Pamela Snow
a
, Tanya Serry
b
and
Lorraine Hammond
c
a
School of Education, La Trobe University, Bendigo, Australia;
b
School of Education,
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia;
c
School of Education, Edith Cowan
University, Perth, Australia
ABSTRACT
A critical review was conducted to determine the
influence background knowledge has on the reading
comprehension of primary school-aged children. We
identified twenty-three studies that met our criteria
and focused on the links between background know-
ledge and reading comprehension of children in the
mid to late primary years. Review findings highlight
that higher levels of background knowledge have a
range of effects that are influenced by the nature of
the text, the quality of the situation model required,
and the presence of reader misconceptions about
the text. Our findings also indicate that background
knowledge impacts differentially on stronger and
weaker readers. Readers with lower background
knowledge appear to benefit more from text with
high cohesion, while weaker readers were able to
compensate somewhat for their relatively weak
reading skills in the context of a high degree of back-
ground knowledge. Implications of the findings for
early years classroom practice are outlined, together
with suggested future research directions.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 3 March 2020
Accepted 19 January 2021
Introduction
The ultimate purpose of reading is to extract and construct meaning
from all kinds of text (Snow, 2002). Reading comprehension is core to
academic progress, because it underpins content-area learning in all
CONTACT Reid Smith Reid.Smith@latrobe.edu.au Department of Education, La Trobe
University, Bendigo, Australia.
ß2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
READING PSYCHOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/02702711.2021.1888348
subjects. Research in reading over the last 40 years has increasingly
emphasized the importance of background knowledge as a significant
contributor to the reading ability of middle school students (Recht &
Leslie, 1988), college students (Chiesi, Spilich, & Voss, 1979; Garner &
Gillingham, 1991; Spilich, Vesonder, Chiesi, & Voss, 1979) and adults
(Walker, 1987). This critical review is concerned with the role played by
background knowledge in reading comprehension for primary school-
aged children, and the implications this has for instruction.
Theoretical Underpinnings
The Simple View of Reading (SVR) (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) holds that
reading comprehension is the product of two distinct yet related skills:
decoding, the ability to recognize individual written words, and language
comprehension, the process of interpreting words and connected dis-
course. During the early stages of learning to read, the ability to decode
is the most crucial factor in the reading process (Castles, Rastle, &
Nation, 2018; Juel, 1988). Once children have achieved accuracy and flu-
ency with decoding, complementary models exist to explain the activity
of reading comprehension.
Reading involves the interaction between the skills and cognitive proc-
esses of the reader and the linguistic characteristics of a text. The reader
needs to integrate text information with prior knowledge to form a men-
tal representation of the meaning of the text (Van Dijk, Kintsch, & Van
Dijk, 1983). Schematic views of reading, such as the Construction-
Integration model, postulate that reading is comprised of interactions
between the literal, propositional representation of a text (the textbase)
and a related schema formed from background knowledge (Kintsch, 1998;
Kintsch & Van Dijk, 1978). The textbase, held in working memory,
includes explicit information from the text, as well as local inferences
used to construct meaning. For most readers, the textbase is automatically
constructed and requires little conscious effort (Tapiero, 2007). Elements
of this textbase are then integrated with the reader’s preexisting schemata,
contained in long-term memory, to form a representation of the meaning
of the text (the situation model). The situation model differs from the
textbase in that it is not a verbatim record of the text. Instead, it is a
dynamically constructed representation of the text and its interaction
with the reader’s preexisting schemata. Situation models are cumulative;
as a person reads and learns more about a given topic, the schemata and
any resultant situation model will change through growth, reorganization
and error correction (Kintsch, 2009).
Low skilled readers (those in the lowest quartile of the population)
typically construct a less detailed situation model than skilled readers
2 R. SMITH ET AL.
because they are less likely to have a coherent textbase and/or well-
formed schemata (Kintsch, 1998; McNamara, Ozuru, & Floyd, 2011).
Without an effective textbase that is coherent with the content of the text,
the reader has access to little information that can be integrated with any
related schemata (Kintsch, 1998). A less coherent textbase results in a
poorer understanding of the text; an inability to recognize differences
between characters or recall information from the text would exemplify a
poor understanding due to an incoherent textbase. In contrast, problems
associated with schemata tend to manifest as inference generation diffi-
culties. Inferencing is the process by which a reader integrates informa-
tion from the text with background knowledge in order to fill in detail
and links not explicitly stated in a text (McNamara & Magliano, 2009).
The ability to infer meaning from text has been recognized as a predictor
of reading comprehension at a range of developmental stages and is one
of the drivers of sophisticated reading ability (Cain & Oakhill, 1999;
Oakhill & Cain, 2007).
The Role of Domain Knowledge
The Construction-Integration model identifies a critical role for back-
ground knowledge in reading (Kintsch, 1998; Kintsch & Van Dijk, 1978).
Knowledge can be classified according to its specificity; background know-
ledge comprises all of the world knowledge that the reader brings to the
task of reading. This can include episodic (events), declarative (facts) and
procedural (how-to) knowledge as well as related vocabulary (Kintsch,
1998). A subset of background knowledge, domain knowledge, refers to
knowledge of a specific and defined field (Alexander & Jetton, 2000).
Long-term memory stores knowledge as a series of propositions that
are activated during reading (Tapiero, 2007). These propositions are con-
nected and organized into various schemata that comprise an individual’s
understanding of a particular concept. The schemata representing a con-
cept will differ from reader to reader, as schemata are built from the
accumulation of individual knowledge and experience. Schemata may dif-
fer in the quality (how “true”or useful), quantity and organization of
information (Kendeou, Rapp, & van den Broek, 2003; Langer, 1984;
Rumelhart, 2017). When reading, the schemata (and related knowledge
propositions) associated with that text are activated in order to contribute
to the construction of the situation model. When readers lack knowledge
elements required to properly integrate the textbase, they build a less
effective situation model and thus have more difficulty understanding the
text (Chiesi et al., 1979; Kendeou et al., 2003; Kendeou & Van Den
Broek, 2007). Low skilled readers are less able to select and recall prem-
ises required to make inferences about a text, and are also less able to
READING PSYCHOLOGY 3
suppress irrelevant information during the integration phase of compre-
hension building (Cain, Oakhill, Barnes, & Bryant, 2001).
Knowledge in long-term memory can be further categorized according to
availability and accessibility. Availability refers to whether relevant knowledge
is held in long-term memory. Accessibility refers to the ease with which avail-
able knowledge can be retrieved, with more accessible knowledge requiring
less time and effort for retrieval. Knowledge that is available may be more or
less accessible; knowledge that is not available cannot be accessed at all.
The accuracy of stored knowledge can vary; items are encoded in long-
term memory irrespective of whether they are accurate. Students bring a
range of knowledge to the task of reading, some of which may be inaccurate;
in fact, for young children, holding misconceptions is often the norm rather
than the exception (Borges, 1999; Vosniadou & Brewer, 1994). Thus, sche-
mata often hold a mix of information that varies in accuracy.
It is important to note that background knowledge differences do not
fully account for variation in reading comprehension abilities of accurate
decoders. Although comprehension is sometimes conceptualized as a
function of decoding ability and the presence of relevant knowledge, stud-
ies examining the comprehension of children using available knowledge
show that there are a number of sources of comprehension failure, even
when the underlying knowledge-base required for comprehension appears
sound (Barnes, Dennis, & Haefele-Kalvaitis, 1996; Cain et al., 2001).
These multiple processes, including aspects of language comprehension
and ability to select relevant background knowledge, cumulatively and
interactively influence cognitive processing during reading.
The Role of Working Memory and Cognitive Load
Working memory is an aspect of executive function that is crucial in
reading (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995; Kintsch, 1998). In the Construction-
Integration model, working memory plays an important role in short
term information retention and transfer to long-term memory. In the
context of reading, working memory is a temporary storage system that
functions to support the reader to briefly hold text propositions and
actively process coherence gaps in order to produce the textbase.
Integration of the textbase with background knowledge to form the situ-
ation model also occurs within the working memory system.
Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) incorporates a model of how working
memory functions during learning tasks, including reading (Sweller, 1994;
Sweller, van Merri€
enboer, & Paas, 2019). During any learning event, the
limited capacity of working memory acts to constrain information trans-
fer to long-term memory. CLT builds on earlier theories first developed
by Baddeley and Hitch (1974), who described working memory as having
4 R. SMITH ET AL.
a limited storage capacity when processing novel information (such as
reading an unfamiliar text). However, working memory has a virtually
limitless capacity for information retrieved from long-term memory
(Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995; Sweller et al., 2019). The number and com-
plexity of information units being processed in working memory at any
one time is sometimes known as the cognitive load, with a greater num-
ber and/or complexity of information units resulting in a higher load
(Sweller et al., 2019). The likelihood that something will be read, under-
stood and learnt (i.e., be encoded into long-term memory) depends in
substantial part on the ability of working memory to adequately process
and integrate new information into existing schemata. This is influenced
by the degree of cognitive load imposed by the complexity of the written
material during reading (Kintsch, 2009).
For comprehension to occur, working memory must not be too heav-
ily burdened. When cognitive load exceeds the limits of available working
memory, the situation model formed is less detailed and elements of the
textbase and situation model are less likely to be encoded in long-term
memory. For readers who have little background knowledge, Kintsch
(2009) theorized that the act of integrating the textbase with any available
knowledge is effortful to the point that it can overload working memory
and lead to comprehension breakdown. Relative experts in a particular
topic with high background knowledge find the act of integrating the
textbase and knowledge more automatic and effectively effortless, lower-
ing working memory (and hence cognitive load) demands. Accessibility
also has a role to play in the load imposed by the act of reading; low
accessibility of knowledge requires an effortful search for the relevant
knowledge and hence increased extrinsic load (Kintsch, 2009).
The Role of the Text
The other actor in reading is the text itself. Texts differ in terms of their
stated purpose, linguistic features, and text coherence and cohesion
(Halliday & Hasan, 2014). Cohesion, sometimes known as the microstruc-
ture, represents the visibility of the link between phrases and sentences.
High-cohesion texts sometimes provide a greater level of explanatory
detail to compensate for a reader’s lack of background knowledge.
Coherence (macrostructure) represents the extent to which the text pro-
vides information and cues to help the reader relate information across
different parts of the text (Graesser, McNamara, & Louwerse, 2003).
High-coherence texts provide explicit clues as to the relationships within
and between sentences and typically include linguistic devices such as
headings and connectives (like because and however) to help link or con-
trast ideas. This has the effect of reducing the cognitive load required to
READING PSYCHOLOGY 5
understand the text (Beck, Omanson, & McKeown, 1982; McKeown,
Beck, Sinatra, & Loxterman, 1992; McNamara, Kintsch, Songer, &
Kintsch, 1996; McNamara et al., 2011).
The cohesion and coherence of a text determines the ease with which a
reader can bring background knowledge to bear. Low-coherence and low-
cohesion texts require the reader to more actively process a text as they are
required to make more inferences, to bridge sentences and ideas. In addition,
a reader facing a low-coherence text needs to rely more heavily upon their
background knowledge to help fill the coherence gaps by making inferences.
Low cohesion texts force readers to more actively process the text; they make
demands that mean a reader may not even observe cues to draw on prior
knowledge to establish meaning (McKeown et al., 1992). This is particularly
true for readers with less background knowledge. These additional demands
mean that a higher level of active processing is required to obtain the text-
base, reducing the amount of working memory available to activate weak
schemata. This results in the creation of a poor situation model and reduced
comprehension. Text coherence and cohesion can be affected by linguistic
features such as the number of T-units, the minimally terminable unit of lan-
guage, present in the text (Hunt, 1965).
It has been suggested that the influence of background knowledge on
reading varies by age (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Graesser & Bertus,
1998) and genre (Berkowitz & Taylor, 1981). Narrative texts differ from con-
versation in that they are stories that are tied together by story grammar
units and linguistic markers of coherence and cohesion (Stein & Glenn,
1979). Expository texts sit at the formal end of the continuum and involve
descriptions that usually contain knowledge that is new to the reader (Paul &
Norbury, 2012). These texts make particular demands on the knowledge of
the reader as such texts, by definition, are written to inform by building on a
reader’s existing knowledge of a particular topic (Beck & McKeown, 1991).
Teaching Reading
The degree to which teachers recognize that differences in the back-
ground knowledge of children can account for some of the variation in
reading is contestable (Strutt, 2011). Reading processes can be described
as skills (automatic once learnt, such as decoding) and strategies (techni-
ques deliberately employed to support comprehension, such as summariz-
ing) (O’Brien & Cook, 2015). Reading instruction beyond the early years
has traditionally focused on encouraging children to use generic reading
comprehension “strategies”such as finding the main idea of a text, exem-
plified by the Strategies To Achieve Reading Success (STARS) program
(Adcock & Davies, 2012; Adcock & Krensky, 2012). However, others have
argued that these so-called “strategies”are actually comprehension
6 R. SMITH ET AL.
outcomes rather than teachable reading strategies (Muijselaar et al., 2018;
Shanahan, 2018). Investigation of teaching approaches such as “finding
the main idea”show a mixed evidence base for their efficacy (Langdon
Sjostrom & Chou Hare, 1984; Ramsay, Sperling, & Dornisch, 2010;
Stevens, Park, & Vaughn, 2019). Given this weak evidence, it is striking
that these methods have a dominant position in classroom instruction
(Dole, Nokes, & Drits, 2009), particularly given that the duration of
instruction in these techniques does not moderate reading comprehension
performance beyond fifteen hours of instruction (Elleman, 2017; Stevens
et al., 2019). Teaching programs that are underpinned by these
approaches, such as the Fountas and Pinnell Systems of Strategic Actions
(Pinnell & Fountas, 2007), are intended to be used across a range of texts
and may be the focus of instruction at the expense of the careful accumu-
lation of knowledge (Hirsch, 2019). Traditionally, and in some cases, still
today, teachers have left the task of building background knowledge in
the hands of the parents. This is a surprising position given a demon-
strated socio-economic status (SES) gradient associated with children’s
preschool oral language exposure and acquisition of world knowledge
(Gilkerson et al., 2017; Hart & Risley, 1995,2003).
The aim of this critical review, therefore, was to examine the published
evidence regarding the degree to which variation in children’sbackground
knowledge contributes to differences in reading comprehension in the mid to
late primary years of schooling. The Construction-Integration model of dis-
course processing holds that levels of comprehension are differentially associ-
ated with the reading process and the development of comprehension. As a
result, we examined studies with a particular emphasis on the differential
effects of varying background knowledge on children identified as being
skilled and low skilled readers. A further purpose of the review was to exam-
ine the interaction between the linguistic features of a text and a reader’s
background knowledge. In particular, we aimed to investigate the effects of
differing levels of text cohesion on children’s reading comprehension.
Method
Inclusion Criteria
General study characteristics
We included empirical studies published between 1950 and 2020 that
either used a knowledge-building intervention or examined correlations
between preexisting knowledge and reading performance. Intervention
studies were included if they used pre-teaching activities or full teaching
sequences designed to increase the relevant background knowledge of
children. Assessments of preexisting knowledge were either a measure of
READING PSYCHOLOGY 7
general knowledge unrelated to the target text or a specific assessment of
knowledge and skills related to the passages used for comprehension.
Reviews of the literature were excluded.
Outcome measures
The primary outcome of interest was reading comprehension ability.
Therefore, included studies featured at least one form of objective, quantita-
tive reading comprehension measure, such as curriculum-based outcome
measures (e.g., Key Stage assessments), standardized tests (e.g., Iowa Test of
Basic Skills (Hoover, Dunbar, & Frisbie, 2001) and Gates-MacGinitie Reading
Test (MacGinitie & MacGinitie, 1992)) or researcher-designed assessments of
reading comprehension. We included studies that used a variety of measures,
such as: open-ended recall, cloze, multiple choice questions and cued recall
outcomes. Studies were not included if they used assessment items that were
explicitly trained in an intervention.
Studies eligible for inclusion in this review needed to include a reading
comprehension measure in which the child read an extended text and
was required to recall and/or answer questions related to the content of
the text. We were interested only in passage-level rather than sentence-
level text in order to inform classroom practices that could be useful in
promoting comprehension of complex written texts. Studies were also
excluded if they used electronic passages or hypertext in order to avoid
confounding due to modality effects.
Participant groups
This review included studies involving participants from age six to 12
enrolled in formal, mainstream education classes taught in English. In
Australia, this age range comprises children who are in middle to late pri-
mary school. Studies conducted in languages other than English were
excluded due to external validity concerns including the potential limita-
tion in providing generalizability of findings to the target population (i.e.,
English-speaking children enrolled in mainstream schools).
Groups of unselected, typically-achieving children, children with devel-
opmental language disorder, or children at risk for language and reading
problems were included in the review. Studies that targeted children with
clinical diagnoses such as autism spectrum disorder or other neurodeve-
lopmental or sensory disabilities were excluded from the review, as were
studies targeting second language learners. This was because the aim of
this review was to capture the effects of background knowledge on the
range of students for whom a Tier 3 intervention or atypical approach
was not yet required. As we aimed to characterize children across the
range of reading abilities reflected in a typical classroom, studies that
8 R. SMITH ET AL.
specifically aimed at the lowest achieving readers to the exclusion of typ-
ically achieving children were also excluded.
Research design
Experimental and quasi-experimental designs were included. For studies
linking background knowledge with reading comprehension in which
there was a categorization according to preexisting background knowledge
but without a specific intervention, a method for defining the population
according to degree to which children could recall relevant knowledge
was required. Intervention studies were required to include a “business as
usual”control condition, with or without exposure to the materials, or a
weaker intervention used to mirror usual classroom instruction. Studies
that compared less and more skilled readers were included, even in the
absence of control groups, as the focus of these studies was the differen-
tial effect of interventions on the two groups of readers. Included studies
needed to have a methodology that was sufficiently detailed that it could
be faithfully replicated. The studies were examined using the Glasgow
Critical Appraisal Checklist (Morrison, Sullivan, Murray, & Jolly, 1999),
which was adapted from the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (www.casp-
uk.ne). The Glasgow Checklist was selected because it had a subsection
directly related to the quality and replicability of education research.
Procedure
We used a critical review methodology. A critical review synthesizes
material from diverse sources, analyzing it in order to produce a hypoth-
esis or model based on the data and study outcomes (Grant & Booth,
2009). The outcome of a critical review differs from other similar review
types in that it is often an evaluation of the relevant body of work in
order to construct a conceptual contribution that embodies existing theo-
ries or to derive a new theory (Grant & Booth, 2009).
Identification and retrieval of the studies
A number of databases were searched, in order to identify the largest possible
number of eligible studies that assessed the relationship between background
knowledge and reading comprehension in primary school children. An elec-
tronic search using ERIC, PychINFO and Web of Science was conducted
using the keywords readAND knowledge and readAND information.In
addition to the electronic search, the reference lists of the retrieved studies
were hand-searched in order to identify any missing articles not captured by
the original search and five additional studies were identified this way. Initial
eligibility screening focused on the age-range of participants, study design
READING PSYCHOLOGY 9
and text type used in the study. This initial screening identified 158 studies
fulfilling the criteria noted above. Of the 158 studies that met initial eligibility
criteria, 18 were identified that used a background knowledge measure or a
knowledge building intervention and explicitly linked it to a measure of read-
ing comprehension. Figure 1 displaysthenumberofstudiesfoundasaresult
of the searches.
Study Characteristics
Eligible studies were coded according to their characteristics by the
first author. For detailed information about the coded characteristics,
see Table 1 below.
Descriptive characteristics
Across the 23 eligible reports, most were published in the 1980s and
1990s, with six published in the last 15 years. The majority of the 23 stud-
ies used a quasi-experimental design and were conducted in the United
States. The sample sizes ranged from 20 to 674, and involved children
from ages six to 12 in classroom settings. Participants in papers reviewed
in this study were representative of the spread of reading abilities present
in typical classrooms and were from a variety of SES backgrounds.
The studies varied in the degree to which they reported gender, SES and
ethnicity, so these details were not coded.
Expository text was utilized in 20 of the 23 studies, in contrast to only
six requiring comprehension of various narrative forms. This is consistent
with the wider field of research focusing on expository text due to its
difficulty; attempts to quantify the relationship between background
knowledge and genre in older children and adults have found that narra-
tive texts are less demanding on background knowledge than expository
Figure 1. Number of included studies before and after eligibility screening.
10 R. SMITH ET AL.
Table 1. Methodological Characteristics by Study
Text
genre
Researcher
developed
texts?
Sample
Size
N
School
Year
Reader
type
Background measure type
Researcher
developed
background
measure?
PreTest
Reading
Measure
PostTest reading measure
Researcher
developed
reading
measure?
Multi-
choice Cloze
Background
Knowledge
intervention
Free
Association
Woodcock-
Johnson III
Open
Ended
Questions Retell
Multi-
Choice Cloze Reenactment
Summary
sentence T/F
Free
Association
Woodcock-
Johnson III
Open
Ended
Questions
Adams et al. (1995) NARR Y 106 4-7 N Y Y Y CAT Y Y Y
Beck et al. (1982) NARR A 48 3 N Y WRA Y Y Y
Best et al. (2008) NARR/EXP 61 3 N Y WJIII Y Y Y
Callahan and Drum (1984) EXP A 20 5-6 A Y Y CAT. MAT Y Y Y Y
Cervetti et al. (2016) EXP Y 59 4 N Y Y –YYY
Connor et al. (2017) EXP Y 418 K-4 N Y WJIII Y Y Y
DeWitz et al. (1987) EXP 101 5 N Y Y ITBS Y Y
Freebody and
Anderson (1983)
EXP Y 88 6 N UYYY
Holmes (1983) EXP Y 56 5 N Y Y –YY
Kim et al. (2021) EXP Y 674 1 N Y Y MAP, D Y Y Y Y
Langer (1984) EXP 161 6 N Y Y ITBS YY
Lipson (1982) EXP A 28 3 N UY Y
Marr and Gormley (1982) EXP Y 33 4 N Y Y MAT YY
McKeown et al. (1992) EXP Y 48 5 N Y MAT Y Y Y
McKeown et al. (2009) NARR/EXP 119 5 N TN, WJIII Y Y Y
McNamara et al. (2011) NARR/EXP A 65 4 N Y WJIII Y Y Y
McNamara et al. (1996) EXP A 36 4 6N Y Y –YY Y
Pearson and
Johnson (1979)
EXP Y 20 2 A Y Y MAT Y Y
Recht and Leslie (1988) NARR Y 64 7 8 N Y Y SRA Y Y Y
Reutzel and Morgan (1990) EXP A 168 5-6 N Y Y GM Y Y Y Y
Stahl and Jacobson (1986) EXP 61 6 N Y GM Y Y Y
Taft and Leslie (1985) EXP Y 57 3 N Y Y –YY Y
Yochum (1991) EXP Y 90 5 N to A Y Y U Y Y
Key.
Text Genre: EXP ¼Expository, NARR ¼Narrative.
Researcher Developed texts: Y ¼Yes, A ¼Adapted version created.
Reader Type: N ¼Normal range, A ¼Above average.
Pretest Reading Measure: MAT ¼Massachusetts Achievement Test, ITBS ¼Iowa Test of Basic Skills, CAT ¼California Achievement Test.
WJIII ¼Woodcock-Johnson III, SPR ¼Scientific Research Associates achievement comprehension subtest, GM¼Gates-MacGinitie Test, TN ¼Terra Nova reading comprehension test, D ¼Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, MAP ¼Measures of
Academic Progress, U ¼unspecified standardized assessment.
READING PSYCHOLOGY 11
texts (Nelson, 1998; Olson, 1985; Spiro & Taylor, 1987; Wolfe &
Woodwyk, 2010).
Excluded studies
A number of otherwise relevant studies were excluded from this review.
A series of experiments, utilizing a novel knowledge base, were excluded
because some or all of the text was read to students (Barnes et al., 1996;
Cain et al., 2001). Others examined single sentence reading so did not
meet the connected text requirement (e.g., McNamara and McDaniel
(2004)). A significant number of studies relied on activation of back-
ground knowledge but had no measure of that knowledge (e.g., Brand~
ao
and Oakhill (2005).
Results and Discussion
Methods Used to Assess Comprehension and Knowledge Vary
Between Studies
One of the striking aspects of the reviewed studies was the variability in
measures employed to measure both reading comprehension and back-
ground knowledge. Reading assessment types varied from free recall (e.g.,
Adams, Bell, & Perfetti, 1995; McKeown, Beck, & Blake, 2009; McNamara
et al., 1996); cued recall (Best, Floyd, & McNamara, 2008; Callahan &
Drum, 1984); cloze (Callahan & Drum, 1984; Connor et al., 2017; Dewitz
et al., 1987); multiple choice questions of various forms (Connor et al.,
2017; Kim et al., 2021; McNamara et al., 2011; Reutzel & Morgan, 1990;
Stahl & Jacobson, 1986; Yochum, 1991); summary (Callahan & Drum,
1984; Freebody & Anderson, 1983; Recht & Leslie, 1988); sentence recog-
nition (Stahl & Jacobson, 1986); true/false questions (Freebody &
Anderson, 1983); to reenactment (Recht & Leslie, 1988). Even when using
the same assessment method, scoring varied. For example, when using a
recall measure, some researchers examined organization of ideas (Langer,
1984), some tallied ideas (Best et al., 2008; Callahan & Drum, 1984; Recht
& Leslie, 1988), while others scored the quality and accuracy of recall
(Cervetti, Wright, & Hwang, 2016; Recht & Leslie, 1988). This variation
was surprising given the considerable effort and attention that has been
devoted to examining ways in which reading comprehension can be
accurately measured (Bowyer-Crane & Snowling, 2005; Hua & Keenan,
2017; Pearson & Johnson, 1972).
Variation in outcome measures across studies is problematic for two
reasons. Firstly, it is difficult to make direct comparisons of background
knowledge effects, and secondly, different levels of comprehension are
assessed by each of the measures. For example, tasks which assess a
12 R. SMITH ET AL.
reader’s memory of the literal aspects of text, such as summaries, sentence
recognition and cloze items, probe a surface level representation of the
text: the textbase constructed by the reader (McNamara et al., 1996;
Tapiero, 2007). In contrast, methods addressing a reader’s inferences,
such as questions requiring integration of prior knowledge with informa-
tion not directly stated in the text, measure the complexity and detail of
the reader’s situation model, probing a deeper understanding of the text
(McNamara et al., 1996).
The variation in comprehension measures indicates that there is not
necessarily one consistent interpretation across studies of what it means
to actually comprehend a text and what the outcomes of comprehension
should and could look like to classroom teachers. The studies do not
have a common view on what children will know and be able to do as a
result of reading, and hence, what methods would be best for measuring
these outcomes. As a result, comparisons and consideration of general
trends across the studies needs to be treated with caution. Despite these
caveats, there were a number of key observations and outcomes that were
consistently reported across the studies and these are discussed below.
Background Knowledge Impacts Differentially on Different
Levels of Comprehension
We consistently found that higher levels of background knowledge enable
children to better comprehend a text. Readers who have a strong know-
ledge of a particular topic, both in terms of quantity and quality of know-
ledge, are more able to comprehend a text than a similarly cohesive text
for which they lack background knowledge. This was evident for both
skilled and low skilled readers (Marr & Gormley, 1982; Reutzel &
Morgan, 1990; Taft & Leslie, 1985).
Reading relies heavily on aspects of an individual’s executive function-
ing, such as working and long-term memory performance, generic read-
ing skills, such as decoding and semantic skills that are applicable across
texts, and the availability of background knowledge specific to the text
being read (Wren, 2000). Several studies included in the review demon-
strated a compensatory effect for knowledge and reading ability; low
skilled readers with strong knowledge were able to compensate for gener-
ally poor comprehension skills (Adams et al., 1995; Holmes, 1983; Recht
& Leslie, 1988). There appears to be to be a tradeoff between knowledge
and general reading ability at this age; a child with a strong knowledge-
base can compensate to some extent for poor reading skill, and a child
with strong reading skill can compensate to some extent for deficiencies
in knowledge (Adams et al., 1995; Cervetti & Wright, 2020).
READING PSYCHOLOGY 13
The findings of this review highlight that the compensatory effect of
background knowledge is most pronounced in the development of the
textbase. Recall and summary measures assess the ability of the reader to
retrieve the meaning of the text but they do not require the reader to
integrate what they have just read into preexisting schemata (Kostons &
van der Werf, 2015). Recht and Leslie (1988) focused on the textbase level
and demonstrated that high-knowledge readers were able to compensate
for poor reading skill to the extent that they were able to summarize and
recall to a similar degree to high-knowledge, skilled readers. The effects
of background knowledge in the construction of a textbase for skilled
readers was less significant (McNamara et al., 1996; Recht & Leslie, 1988),
to the point where, in the well-known Recht and Leslie (1988) so-called
“baseball study”, there was no statistically significant difference in the
recall between less-skilled and skilled, high-knowledge children.
McNamara et al. (1996) reported a similar effect whereby readers with
sufficient background knowledge were able to recall elements of the text
irrespective of their general reading abilities. The authors hypothesized
that the ability to recall information is directly related to the formation of
an adequate textbase (McNamara et al., 1996). The textbase can serve as
an efficient retrieval structure, and so propositions can be retrieved suc-
cessfully, regardless of whether the reader understands the relationships
between them (Kintsch, 1998).
The compensatory effect of knowledge was less pronounced when chil-
dren were asked to make inferences. Adams and colleagues (1995) demon-
strated that children with greater domain knowledge were more capable of
making inferences about a narrative text. Interestingly, although low-skill
readers did gain some benefit from increased knowledge, it was not as pro-
nounced as that gained by above-average readers. In contrast to the effects
of knowledge on the textbase, low-skill readers were not able to fully com-
pensate for below-average reading skill while inferencing (Adams et al.,
1995). This was consistent with findings from a number of other studies
(Holmes, 1983; Reutzel & Morgan, 1990;Stahl&Jacobson,1986).
The review also indicated that the effects of increased knowledge
depend on a child’s reading skill. Low skill readers with high knowledge
are able to compensate for poorer reading skills in textbase construction
(McNamara et al., 1996; Recht & Leslie, 1988). This, in turn, enables a
more effective situation model to be produced; however, this model is still
not as detailed as that formed by an above-average, high-knowledge
reader. Therefore, although recall is strong, these readers still find infer-
encing difficult (Adams et al., 1995; Holmes, 1983; McNamara et al.,
1996; Reutzel & Morgan, 1990; Stahl & Jacobson, 1986). For stronger
readers, the impact of knowledge is most pronounced in the integration
of the textbase into a more complete schema to develop the situation
14 R. SMITH ET AL.
model. These children gain less benefit in the development of the textbase
but increased knowledge facilitates the formation of a more coherent situ-
ation model. These observations are consistent across studies comparing
the performance of low and high knowledge readers (Best et al., 2008;
Taylor, 1979; Yekovich, Walker, Ogle, & Thompson, 1990).
Knowledge Interacts with the Coherence and Cohesion of the Text
Understanding a text is moderated by an interaction between background
knowledge and the text’s coherence and cohesion. In each of the reviewed
studies, cohesion had differential effects on the reader depending on their
level of background knowledge. McNamara and colleagues (1996) deter-
mined that readers with less knowledge were more able to recall key fea-
tures and answer inferential questions after reading a highly cohesive and
coherent text. These children benefit from texts that do much of the proc-
essingforthembecausethecohesivetextprovidesmoresupportforthe
textbase and resultant situation model production (McNamara et al., 1996;
Reutzel & Morgan, 1990). In contrast, high knowledge children developed a
more complete situation model, and hence a greater understanding of the
text, when the text had lower cohesion. For these readers, the additional
processing required for low cohesion text forces them to produce a more
complete situation model (McNamara et al., 1996). When faced with a
more cohesive text, high knowledge children seem less likely to actively pro-
cess the text and monitor their comprehension as a result of the ease with
which they can form the textbase (McNamara et al., 1996). This “reverse
cohesion effect”seems to be a specific instance of the expertise reversal
effect described in the CLT literature, whereby instructional techniques dif-
fer depending on levels of prior knowledge (Sweller et al., 2019). The
expertise reversal effect notes that novice learners benefit from consistent,
heavily guided instruction or texts, whereas experts (higher-knowledge
learners) benefit more from reduced guidance or support (Sweller
et al., 2019).
The findings of this review suggest that cohesion demands are partially
responsible for the degree to which text genre impacts on the comprehen-
sion ability of children to compensate for lower reading ability using
prior knowledge. Across several studies included in this review, there was
a much greater impact of knowledge on the ability of children to read
expository texts as compared to narrative texts (Best et al., 2008;
McNamara et al., 2011; Nelson, 1998). Several factors may contribute to
this finding. Firstly, working memory demands of expository texts are
more pronounced than for narrative texts, as the schema associated with
narrative text structure are usually more practised for younger children
than expository texts (Best et al., 2008; Williams, Hall, & Lauer, 2004). A
READING PSYCHOLOGY 15
lower demand on working memory with narrative texts may allow a
greater focus on encoding the information in long-term memory
(Tapiero, 2007). An alternative explanation is that the demands on prior
knowledge imposed by expository texts are significantly greater than those
imposed by narrative text –consequently, the impact of poor prior know-
ledge may be far more pronounced with expository texts (Cervetti &
Wright, 2020; Wolfe & Woodwyk, 2010).
Misconceptions Can Be an Inhibiting Factor in Reading
Comprehension
Several studies highlighted the significance of the quality of knowledge for
reading comprehension, particularly the impact of reader misconceptions.
In the study by Lipson (1982), children identified as high and low skill read-
ers were asked to recognize and recall information from an expository text.
During this task, children relied more heavily on prior knowledge than on
the text; when information in the text contradicted prior knowledge, chil-
dren would preference prior knowledge. When asked to recall the contents
of the article, low skill readers were much more likely to omit contradictory
information from the text and replace with their misconception. Holmes
(1983) conducted a similar study, dividing participants into above and below
average readers to determine any differential effects of reading ability. She
observed similar effects to Lipson, noting that above-average readers were
more likely to identify contradictions between prior knowledge and infor-
mation in the text. Below-average readers were more reliant on their (incor-
rect) knowledge and struggled to resolve inconsistencies between the text
and prior knowledge (Holmes, 1983). This effect was observed in another
review study (McKeown et al., 1992). The ability to notice and address
breakdowns in comprehension is one of the features of a competent reader
(Barnes et al., 1996). This ability may be related to differing levels of organ-
ization of knowledge in long-term memory (Holmes, 1983;Langer,1984).
Higher levels of schematic organization are characterized by more precise
definitions of terms, superordinate concepts and analogous relationships
between ideas (Langer, 1984). Schemata that had a greater level of organiza-
tion enabled readers to recall and utilize information more readily from
related expository texts.
Contribution of the Findings to a Wider Context
For children in middle to late primary school, depth of background
knowledge has significant implications for their ability to read texts of
various genres. Arguably the strongest contribution of this review to the
current body of research is the contrast in the compensatory effects of
16 R. SMITH ET AL.
background knowledge on particular levels of comprehension described in
the Construction-Integration model for skilled and low-skill readers. Figure
2depicts these differential effects and their relationship to general reading
skill. In the formation of an accurate textbase, knowledge can help a reader
identify cohesion gaps in the text and construct bridging inferences to
repair these gaps. As this review has demonstrated, when a low-skilled
reader has strong knowledge relevant to the text, they can compensate for
below average reading skill to the point where their recall of a text is similar
to that of a skilled reader with similar knowledge (see Figure 2).
Background knowledge also affects the quality of the situation model
formed during reading. The stronger and more detailed the background
knowledge, the stronger the situation model representation of the text
will be. Therefore, a stronger knowledge base can compensate for less
skilled reading, although not completely (see Figure 2). The fact that
background knowledge cannot fully compensate for less skilled general
reading highlights the importance of teaching foundational skills thor-
oughly and not just relying on the development of a stronger knowledge-
base. Several studies in this review (Adams et al., 1995; Holmes, 1983;
Reutzel & Morgan, 1990; Stahl & Jacobson, 1986) demonstrated a gap in
the quality of the situation model formed by knowledgeable readers of
differing reading skill, a finding which is supported by other studies with
older students (Kraal, Koornneef, Saab, & van den Broek, 2018;O’Reilly
& McNamara, 2007) and in other forms of discourse (Barnes et al., 1996;
Cain et al., 2001). This residual difference in reading skill has variously been
Figure 2. Differences in the effects of background knowledge for above and below
average readers on textbase and situation model quality.
READING PSYCHOLOGY 17
attributed to difficulty identifying text relations, integrating information from
the text with background knowledge and generating relevant inferences at the
right time (Cain et al., 2001; Cervetti & Wright, 2020;Perfetti,Landi,&
Oakhill, 2005; Rapp, Broek, McMaster, Kendeou, & Espin, 2007).
Therefore, although background knowledge is an important compo-
nent of reading comprehension, it is not the only component and thus
can only partially compensate for less skilled and strategic reading. This
partial compensation model differs from some descriptions of the impacts
of background knowledge, which claim greater degrees of compensation.
(Recht & Leslie, 1988).
The impact of low background knowledge can be ameliorated by
enhancing the cohesion of a text –low knowledge readers benefit from
greater cohesion in the text because they lack the necessary prior know-
ledge to generate bridging inferences. When the text lacks cohesion, the
low knowledge reader is generally unable to make connections between
separate ideas in the text. By contrast, high knowledge readers gain from
cohesion gaps because it forces them to access background knowledge to
understand the text. In a follow-up study to that described in this review,
O’Reilly and McNamara (2007) found that this reverse cohesion effect
exists only for less skilled readers. They attribute this difference to the
fact that more skilled readers are already making strategic decisions and
actions that actively repair comprehension deficits.
The finding that different tools for assessing reading comprehension
are used across various studies is not surprising; it has been a debated
topic for some time (e.g., Dochy, Segers, & Buehl, 1999; Johnston &
Pearson, 1982). However, the range of test types, and the various levels of
comprehension that each assessed, was greater than expected given
attempts over time to develop consistent measures of reading.
Limitations of the Reviewed Research Studies
Few studies specifically compared a measure of background knowledge
with a measure of reading comprehension for younger children. Some
attempted a knowledge activation strategy (such as pre-reading) or a
framework like a concept map but neglected the measurement of what
children knew either before the intervention or as a result of the know-
ledge-building intervention.
The absence of a standardized measure of reading comprehension
made some comparisons difficult. As mentioned previously, measures
used across the studies were generally researcher-developed and unique to
the study. This use of custom measures is understandable given the short
duration of the studies; however, the presence of standardized (and com-
parable) measures would have allowed a more robust analysis.
18 R. SMITH ET AL.
One of the concerns about generalizing from the literature included in
this review is the degree to which the situation model and the resultant
schema construction are stable. The stability of a schema is measured by
the longevity of understanding of the text. In most of the studies, the
time elapsed between reading and the subsequent assessment was brief.
In a few studies there was a longer time between reading the text and
comprehension. Given that the purpose of many of texts in the included
studies is specifically to inform the reader, it would have been useful to
have a greater indication of long-term retention.
Most interventions in this study were short-term, ranging from two to
12 hours of instructional time. In a middle primary classroom, time is typic-
ally spent building students’knowledge in less well-defined domains such as
‘The American Revolution’and ‘Classification’. Due to the larger scope of
these domains, they require a lengthier instructional phase than those in the
studies in this review. Development of longer-term interventions designed to
specifically build a larger knowledge-base would have contributed to the
understanding of the effects of knowledge building in the regular classroom.
The effectiveness of this approach is hinted at in the two exceptions to this
generalization: the Model of Reading Engagement (MORE) (Kim et al., 2021)
and the Content-Area Literacy Instruction (CALI) (Connor et al., 2017)mod-
els. Both attempted to systematically build a knowledge base over a longer
period of time. Both models showed positive and significant effects on prox-
imal reading measures and smaller effects on texts that were more distal to
the content that was being studied as part of the program. These two studies
suggest the potential for longer scale knowledge building, and a greater
emphasis on this in the literature would be welcome.
Limitations of the Review
One limitation of this review was the exclusion of research completed in
non-English speaking populations. Although the intention of this criter-
ion was to increase the ecological validity of the findings, a substantial
body of research relating to the links between background knowledge and
reading comprehension has been conducted in non-English speaking pop-
ulations. These exclusions were a reflection of the resources available to
the research team, consisting of people fluent only in English. An adjust-
ment to include these studies would have strengthened the review.
Recommendations for Practice and Future Research
In examining the outcomes of this review, it becomes more clear that
background knowledge is not just an incidental aspect of reading instruc-
tion. Instead, explicitly teaching background knowledge should be
READING PSYCHOLOGY 19
considered foundational to increasing competency in reading. The out-
comes of this review indicate that development of background knowledge
is as, if not more, important now as it has ever been in the past, if even
just for the “simple act”of comprehending a text (Willingham, 2006).
Thus it is imperative that English and Language Arts educators must
focus on the explicit teaching of domain knowledge in English and
Language Arts classrooms in order to build their students’reading com-
prehension capacity.
Findings from this review suggest that children would benefit from
exposure to background knowledge in a specific, explicit and sequenced
way (Connor et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2021): a so-called “knowledge rich”
curriculum (Hirsch, 2019) in addition to teaching of comprehension strat-
egies such as summarizing. This contrasts with the more prevalent
approach of teaching generic reading comprehension strategies”(such as
determining the main idea, inferring and locating information) as the
prime focus of reading instruction (Griffith & Duffett, 2018; Moats,
2000). The recommendation for the development of background know-
ledge also runs counter to the prevailing view in Australian education
circles that, due to the prevalence of online information sources, know-
ledge building is less relevant and necessary than in the past and less rele-
vant than the building of so-called soft-skills such as critical thinking and
collaboration (Schleicher, 2018).
The differential impacts of background knowledge on reading compre-
hension have implications for the selection of reading materials for the
instruction of primary aged children. There seems to be a “Goldilocks”
principle at play in the selection of texts; if the process of comprehension
is too effortful then mental resources go toward maintaining meaning
and not storage and learning, whereas if comprehension is not effortful
enough then inscription to long-term memory is less likely to occur. In
terms of CLT, the load imposed by maintaining meaning becomes too
high and encoding information in long-term memory is inhibited
(Kintsch, 2009). If the reading process is too easy, readily accessible mem-
ories are not created. Using several matched texts written at particular
levels of cohesion for particular domains as part of an instructional
sequence may enable a text choice that is just difficult enough to enable
active processing but not so difficult that comprehension cannot occur
(McNamara et al., 1996).
Future research should focus on several questions related to knowledge
structure, availability and accessibility. The ability to recruit background
knowledge in the act of reading may be a function of the stability of that
knowledge in long-term memory. Given the purpose of reading many
texts, particularly for school-aged children, is to learn new information,
the ability of children to form a stable knowledge-base is of great
20 R. SMITH ET AL.
importance. In particular, given that long-term knowledge retention is
one of the aims of formal schooling, future studies could be conducted to
determine whether the compensatory effects of relevant prior knowledge
when reading allow the resultant knowledge constructed to be better
retained over a longer period than that measured in most of the studies
in this review.
There is some suggestion that the ease with which children can acti-
vate relevant schemata (knowledge accessibility) affects subsequent com-
prehension. Future studies could test whether comprehension is affected
by relevant knowledge accessibility, and whether there is a difference in
the degree to which knowledge accessibility has an impact on the reading
comprehension abilities of high and low skill readers.
Finally, studies involving a more ecologically sound knowledge-build-
ing intervention for the purpose of improving reading comprehension
could be conducted. Interventions that have a stronger link with the way
in which a knowledge-base is developed in typical classrooms could be
tested for their effects on the reading of related texts. This may inform
how instruction may be adapted to best develop comprehension.
Conclusion
The role of background knowledge has been a well-recognized and
researched aspect of reading comprehension for the last four decades.
Knowledge plays an integral role in most theories of reading, yet remains
an under-addressed aspect of reading instruction for teachers. This review
built upon the existing literature by describing the various ways in which
background knowledge partially, not completely, compensates for reading
skill deficiencies. Although misconceptions may be an inhibitor in com-
prehension, the presence of rich schemata gives readers a greater oppor-
tunity to build a strong understanding of the texts they read. This review
highlights the importance of the systematic and sequential building of
background knowledge for an increased ability to comprehend a range of
texts in upper-primary school children. It also focuses on the interactions
between text coherence, background knowledge and learning from text,
and so has implications for text selections for learning and for teacher
pre-service education and professional development.
ORCID
Reid Smith http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0638-934X
Pamela Snow http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2426-8349
Tanya Serry http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1538-7327
READING PSYCHOLOGY 21
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