Background knowledge has a greater impact on comprehension of expository texts than narrative texts for primary children¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · reviewr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2021 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? Across several reviewed studies, knowledge had a much greater impact on children's ability to read expository texts compared to narrative texts. → Reid Smith 2021
Evidence¶
Reid Smith 2021¶
Reid Smith, Pamela Snow, Tanya Serry & Lorraine Hammond (2021) The Role of Background Knowledge in Reading Comprehension: A Critical Review, Reading Psychology, 42:3, 214-240, https://doi.org/10.1080/02702711.2021.1888348
q2 · i? · review · r2
Review synthesis across multiple studies on genre effects. Expository texts were used in 20 of 23 reviewed studies, consistent with the field's focus on expository text difficulty.
"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)."
Discussion¶
Learner Variables¶
- Prior Knowledge — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Related Claims¶
- Higher background knowledge enables better reading comprehension for both skilled and low-skilled primary readers — related
- Reader misconceptions inhibit comprehension; low-skill readers prefer prior knowledge over contradictory text information — related
- Text cohesion interacts with background knowledge: low-knowledge readers benefit from high cohesion, high-knowledge readers from low cohesion (reverse cohesion effect) — related
- The genre-by-generation-task interaction: sentence unscrambling beats letter completion in expository texts, and letter completion beats sentence unscrambling descriptively in narratives — related
- Learning mechanisms are triggered to a greater extent for non-STEM-background students in the narrative condition and for STEM-background students in the expository condition — related
- Prior biology knowledge tentatively moderates material effectiveness: non-STEM students favor narratives, STEM students favor expository texts for recall and understanding — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
knowledge-impact-greater-expository-narrative |
title |
Background knowledge has a greater impact on comprehension of expository texts than narrative texts for primary children |
description |
Background knowledge has a greater impact on comprehension of expository texts than narrative texts for primary children |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2021 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-17 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — reid-smith-2021 |
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