Effects on ReadinComprehension of Building Background Knowledge

This experimental study investigated the effects on reading comprehension of building background knowledge. The following specific points were addressed. Would prior cultural experience have different effects on ESL students' reading comprehension of information linked to a familiar aspect of an American custom in comparison to information linked to an unknown aspect of this custom? Would time of presentation of the meanings of preselected unfamiliar vocabulary words in the same passage have different effects on reading comprehension? Seventy two advanced ESL students on the university level read a passage on the topic of Halloween. The passage contained unfamiliar and familiar information based on the subjects' recent experience of this custom. Subjects studied the meanings of preselected unfamiliar vocabulary words before reading and/or found them in the text. Statistical analysis of the recall of the passage and of the sentence recognition task indicates that prior cultural experience prepared readers for comprehension of the familiar information about Halloween in the passage. However, exposure to meanings of the target vocabulary words by any of the treatments seems not to have a significant effect on reading comprehension.