Pre-Reading Strategies¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 5 claims (3 for, 2 against) · 14 studies (7 causal, 5 quant-synthesis, 1 review, 1 theoretical), q2–q4 · 5 of 14 report an effect size

Description¶

Pre-reading strategies are structured activities completed before learners engage with a text: activating relevant prior knowledge, previewing text structure, pre-teaching critical vocabulary, and establishing a purpose for reading. They prepare the reader's knowledge structures so that incoming text can be integrated rather than processed word-by-word.

Design Implications¶

Pre-reading activities work primarily by supplying or activating the schema that comprehension depends on — readers with relevant background knowledge understand and remember far more of the same text than readers without it Activation of prior knowledge improves comprehension and recall. [+S]. Advance organizers — brief, abstract previews of how the material is organized — reliably improve learning when they map the structure of the upcoming text Advance organizers improve learning outcomes. [+M]. The purpose-setting function matters equally: telling readers what to look for directs attention and improves recall of targeted content, though at some cost to untargeted content [~M].

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Knowledge of what the text demands: key concepts, unfamiliar vocabulary, and assumed background
• A brief activity (typically 5–10 minutes) that surfaces what learners already know, including misconceptions
• A clear purpose or guiding question that frames the reading (Advance Organizers, anticipation guides)

Constraints¶

• Activation of the wrong schema harms comprehension — a misleading preview or an anecdote that evokes irrelevant knowledge produces worse recall than no preview [~S]
• Pre-teaching too much vocabulary overloads learners; only high-utility, text-critical terms should be front-loaded, with the rest handled during reading Cognitive overload degrades learning. [-M]
• Purpose-setting questions narrow attention: readers recall prompted content well but unprompted content poorly [~M]
• Organizers that add interesting-but-irrelevant detail reduce learning rather than helping Irrelevant seductive details hurt learning. [-S]

Implementation Variability¶

• Anticipation guides — learners agree/disagree with claims about the text before reading, then revisit after; creates Cognitive Disequilibrium that motivates reading to resolve
• Pre-questioning — a question posed before reading directs attention to key content
• Vocabulary pre-teaching — 3–5 critical terms with student-friendly definitions and examples
• Text preview / structural walk-through — examining headings, figures, and layout to build a structural map (Chunking the text into navigable parts)
• Analogy priming — introducing a familiar analog before reading so the text maps onto it Analogical reasoning improves transfer. [+M]

Target Learners¶

• Readers with low prior knowledge of the topic, who benefit most from background building Activation of prior knowledge improves comprehension and recall. [+S]
• Struggling readers and multilingual learners, for whom vocabulary pre-teaching removes a primary comprehension barrier
• Less necessary for expert readers with strong domain knowledge, who generate their own previews and purposes [~W]

Target Learning Goals¶

• Reading comprehension of informational and expository text
• Integration of new content with existing knowledge structures
• Vocabulary acquisition in context
• Metacognitive reading habits: previewing, purpose-setting, predicting

Instructions¶

1. Surface prior knowledge and misconceptions with a quick prompt or anticipation guide (Activation; see Activating Prior Knowledge)
2. Pre-teach 3–5 text-critical vocabulary terms with examples, not definitions alone
3. Present an advance organizer that maps the text's structure (Advance Organizers)
4. Set a purpose: a guiding question or task learners must answer from the text
5. During reading, have learners mark evidence and revisit predictions (Annotating)
6. After reading, close the loop: revisit the anticipation guide or question to consolidate and correct

Related Strategies¶

• Activating Prior Knowledge — the core mechanism most pre-reading activities enact
• Annotating — the natural during-reading companion to a pre-reading purpose
• Advance Organizers — the structural preview variant with the strongest evidence base
• Questioning — pre-questions are the before-reading end of a full questioning cycle
• Offer a structured advance organizer before the full article for readers who benefit from one

Examples¶

• Anticipation guides in science classes: students agree/disagree with claims like "heavier objects fall faster" before a physics text, then revise after reading — misconceptions are confronted rather than silently reinforced.
• Reading Rockets — publishes practitioner-tested pre-reading routines (previewing, KWL charts, vocabulary pre-teaching) grounded in comprehension research.
• KWL charts — learners record what they Know, what they Want to know, and later what they Learned; the K and W columns are the pre-reading phase.
• Newsela — leveled versions of the same article let teachers pre-teach core concepts once and have all students read at accessible levels.

Key Sources¶

• Ausubel, D. P. (1960). The use of advance organizers in the learning and retention of meaningful verbal material. Journal of Educational Psychology, 51(5), 267–272. doi:10.1037/h0046669
• Dole, J. A., Duffy, G. G., Roehler, L. R., & Pearson, P. D. (1991). Moving from the old to the new: Research on reading comprehension instruction. Review of Educational Research, 61(2), 239–264. doi:10.3102/00346543061002239
• Recht, D. R., & Leslie, L. (1988). Effect of prior knowledge on good and poor readers' memory of text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(1), 16–20. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.80.1.16
• Pressley, M. (2002). Reading instruction that works: The case for balanced teaching (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.