Imagine you’re reading an article about the water cycle, but you don’t know what the words “evaporate,” “atmosphere,” or “precipitation” mean, and you’re not sure about the difference between an ocean and a lake. Also, you’ve never given much thought to what those clouds are doing up there. How well do you think you’ll comprehend what you’re reading?

Or maybe you’re learning about James Baldwin’s relocation to Paris in the mid-twentieth century. Suppose the phrase “mid-twentieth century” means nothing to you, and you have no notation of what it was like to be a Black man in the United States at the time – what is “discrimination”? – and you’re not certain what country Paris is in. It’s probably near New York… And what does “literature” mean? It’s going to be painful when you sit down to write the biographical essay your English teacher assigned.

I’ve been in education for over 15 years, witnessing all along the adverse effects of insufficient background knowledge and limited vocabulary. Even if students have the decoding skills they need to read a passage correctly, their ability to read independently will be severely limited if they don’t have broad knowledge and they don’t grasp the meaning of words – they’re reading the text, but they’re not absorbing the content.

Scarborough’s Reading Rope, a helpful metaphor, illustrates the many strands that must be present for students to be strong readers. The two main strands are language comprehension and word recognition. Before I was conscious of the need to build background knowledge, I saw that my students were successful on the word recognition side of The Reading Rope – making great gains in phonological awareness and decoding, reading accurately and fluently – yet their independent reading skills were stagnant.

Then I picked up The Knowledge Gap by Natalie Wexler. I flew through the book; it all made so much sense. Relieved, I thought, “This is what’s been missing in my instruction.” I realized that if I began building background knowledge into my reading remediation sessions, it would cure one of my biggest pain points as a reading specialist. Natalie Wexler showed me how to strengthen my students’ weakest Reading Rope strands: background knowledge and vocabulary.

This “aha” moment came about a year and a half after I founded Redwood Literacy, a Chicago-based organization that provides accessible, best-in-class literacy instruction to students around the world. I got the book for everyone at Redwood, and it brought us together in a really exciting way. Natalie Wexler’s insights illuminated a hard reality for teachers in the U.S. (students can make it all the way through high school with very little knowledge of the world) and invited us to get more intentional, creative, and diligent about improving our students’ reading comprehension. It’s all about building background knowledge. Since then, “Velcro” has been a big word at Redwood.

Like Velcro, Natalie Wexer notes, knowledge sticks to knowledge. So when students are learning about John Muir protecting giant sequoia forests in the late 1800s but they don’t have a sense of what life was like in 1889, can’t locate California on a map, haven’t learned why healthy forests are vital, and can’t picture the enormity of a sequoia, then the new information they learn about Muir’s work will land in a vacuum and shortly dissolve. For new knowledge to be absorbed and understood, there must be a foundation of existing knowledge.

But what does it look like to build background knowledge?

First, if you’re an educator (or parent), it means never assuming that young people are aware of something merely because it’s common knowledge. Common knowledge is becoming less common. History and geography are particular blind spots in the United States; deepen your students’ grasp of these subjects whenever possible. If you’re studying ancient Egypt, show students a map of Africa and dwell on the difference between a city, a country, and a continent. Note how many distinct cultures and languages are present in that single continent. If you’re studying Abraham Lincoln, provide plenty of information about what was happening before, during, and after The Civil War. If you feel you might be overdoing it with context details, you’re on the right track. (Dates are hard to latch on to. A timeline helps. Make knowledge visual whenever possible.)

Next, embrace wide reading. Redwood defines wide reading as the practice of reading and exploring a series of connected texts about a similar topic at varying rigor levels, giving students the opportunity to build background knowledge and vocabulary without getting bored. Reading deeply on one specific topic has been shown to improve comprehension and verbal fluency while building general knowledge. Start by choosing a specific subject your student is interested in (tennis, the history of hip hop, railroads, Bollywood films, fashion, etc. – anything your student finds fascinating enough to engage in deeply). Next, assemble a variety of materials on that topic. These could include videos and podcasts, along with texts (articles, essays, stories, chapters, maybe a whole book) at a reading level your student will be able to comfortably read. Also include more challenging texts that you will read (or assistive technology will read) aloud.

It may initially seem like wide reading is about making your student into an expert in one subject area. Not a bad goal, but the real purpose of wide reading brings us back to the Velcro metaphor: by reading (and viewing, and listening) deeply and broadly on one topic – humpback whales, let’s say – your student is building layer upon layer of knowledge (geography, marine biology, conservation, world history, the interdependence of living things) all the while soaking up dozens and dozens of juicy new vocabulary words. (Here’s a free wide reading resource from Redwood Literacy.)

Finally, you can enhance students’ background knowledge by introducing a curriculum that emphasizes knowledge-building and vocabulary acquisition. Natalie Wexler co-authored another book that’s been transformational at Redwood – The Writing Revolution. That book presents a framework for how to teach writing to students at all levels and within any subject area. Natalie Wexler and Judith C. Hochman assert that writing instruction is most fruitful when it’s practiced in the context of material students are familiar with – we can only write well about subjects we know well. Too often, writing is a skill that’s expected in the classroom (write a four-paragraph essay on the Inca civilization) but not a skill that’s explicitly taught (here’s how to turn your knowledge of the Inca civilization into four well-structured paragraphs). Writing is crucial in school and the workplace; it clarifies our thinking; it enables us to effectively communicate our thoughts, feelings, and stories. It’s also the most powerful way to enhance comprehension. The Writing Revolution is an enlightening guide for this knowledge-based approach to writing instruction, and it inspired us at Redwood to develop our own curriculum.

Writing Our World™ teaches the skills outlined in The Writing Revolution by incorporating primary texts that build knowledge and expand vocabulary. It also introduces the assistive technology tools that will be indispensable for students with learning differences. Experience has shown us that explicit instruction is crucial, beyond just learning how to read and spell. If you’re a neurodivergent learner – especially if you have dyslexia or dysgraphia – you need systematic instruction in reading comprehension, written expression, and assistive technology. Grounded in the wisdom of Natalie Wexler and Judith C. Hochman, we created Writing Our World™ to help meet that need.

The problem is real: students are moving through grade after grade without building knowledge, without heightening their vocabularies, without learning to write, and without developing the critical thinking skills that emerge when those three elements are combined. But the hope is real too: knowledge can be imparted, comprehension skills can be nurtured, and writing will improve with explicit instruction and diligent practice. Students long for knowledge; they thirst for the information they don’t have. They want to learn. (Again, read The Knowledge Gap. It’s all in there.) So let’s get to work and teach them what they need to know and want to know. This is crucial. And it’s difficult. And, often, it’s pretty fun.

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