Add to favoritesby Nicole Lauzon, OCT, Educational Consultant, LDAO
Description
Comprehension is a reader’s ability to understand what he/she is reading. There are many different techniques for supporting comprehension. Comprehension depends upon the reader’s ability to make connections between the text and his/her prior knowledge and also his/her ability to predict subsequent events. Anticipation creates a goal, and students love to see whether they can predict the outcome of a story. A KWL table is a graphic organizer that is used during the beginning, middle and ending of a lesson, to help kinesthetic and visual learners to get an overview. (Winebrenner, 2006). KWL stands for what students know, what students want to learn and what students learned from the lesson.
When a teacher shows his/her students how to read, he/she encourages them to become actively engaged in the process of comprehension by discussing experiences that they have had and by developing them. Before starting to read, teachers should encourage students to think about how the text relates to their own personal experience.
The KWL strategy gives students—especially students with learning disabilities—an opportunity to set an intention for their work, create visual and conceptual representations, and make connections between their life and their learning. This is a three-part strategy in the form of a table enabling students to note what they already know (K), what they want to learn (W), and what they ultimately learn (L). This table was created by Ogle in 1986. It consists of three columns for noting the students’ ideas about:
- Their knowledge of the subject before the learning activity (what I already KNOW);
- What they want to learn about the subject (what I WANT to learn); and
- The knowledge they acquire as a result of the project or certain activities (what I have LEARNED).
This is an excellent strategy for identifying prior knowledge and encouraging students to monitor their own progress. KWL was initially developed as a strategy for learning through reading; it helps students to explore a topic and to become engaged in a metacognitive process. It provides teaching staff with relevant information to guide lesson planning and the selection of teaching strategies.
A KWL table helps students to understand what they already know (K), what they want to know (W), and what they ultimately learn (L) about a topic or issue. It is an effective visual tool for drawing on the students’ prior knowledge and creating a list of questions that give learning a raison d’être. Click here to access an example of a completed KWL table.
A KWL table may be used to introduce a new topic or concept; it may also be used when students read, watch a video, prepare to welcome a guest speaker, go on a field trip, and so forth. It may be used with students from JK to Grade 12 for any reading selection on any topic and with groups of any size.
The KWL chart may also be used to complete formative assessment in the classroom by allowing teachers to find out a student’s prior knowledge on a topic.
Steps
- Create a KWL table using technology, e.g., on a computer, and then project onto an interactive white board, use easel paper, and/or provide individual tables.
- Post the KWL table in the classroom for the entire duration of the project, so that the students can consult it for the answers to their questions; fill in the last column as they learn; and find and correct any previous knowledge in the first column that turned out to be incorrect.
- The KWL table becomes an interactive record of the students’ learning; it is very helpful in stimulating conversation.
Examples: Reading an article – give the students a KWL table
The KWL technique refers to the three cognitive processes used during the activity:
- Identify what the students already know (KNOW)
- Find out what they want to learn (WANT to learn)
- Before reading the article, do some brainstorming out loud to identify what the students already know about the topic, as a means of activating their prior learning.
- Enter this information into the table (Column K)
- Continue brainstorming out loud to find out what the students want to learn about this topic.
- Before the students start to read, each student will write down on his/her own work sheet the questions for which he/she wants answers during the discussion (Column W).
- The students then complete the last column as they read or just after reading their article (Column L).
- The discussion that follows should help the students to make the connection between their prior knowledge about the topic and what the article read in class was about.
- Ask the students to go back to their questions to see whether the article made it possible to answer them.
- If not, suggest to them that they do further reading.
Adaptations:
Use the KWL strategy before watching a film.
- The KWL strategy is used after the students have become aware of the topic of the film, the synopsis, and the vocabulary, but before they actually watch it.
- The last column is completed throughout the duration of the project.
Here are two ways to lead the KWL strategy:
- The students complete the first and second columns of the KWL table on their own, then they share their ideas in class.
- The teacher enters these ideas on the main KWL table, which is posted throughout the duration of the project.
- As the project progresses, or at the conclusion of certain activities, the process is summarized so that the last column can be completed (what I have LEARNED).
Self-questioning
Self-questioning strategies are another tool that students can use to check their reading comprehension. Simply asking questions does not mean that a student will develop questioning strategies. Because of this, the teacher should model self-questioning and give the student clues for asking questions. Self-questioning helps students to understand and evaluate what they are reading.
- Does it make sense?
- What will happen next?
- How does this relate to what I already know?
Adaptions of the KWL Strategy
Wikipedia (2014) identifies three adaptions of the KWL chart that can be used in the classroom:
Hill
One adaptation as created by Hill is an extension of the traditional KWL chart to include a column for "Further Wanderings" at the end of the table. This allows for the student’s knowledge to continue beyond what they have learned within the classroom. The idea behind this extra column is to encourage the students to continue to learn.
KLEW
Another adaptation of the KWL chart is the KLEW chart. The KLEW chart was developed by a group of people with various backgrounds including an elementary school teacher, a professor and a professional development specialist. Within this chart, the "K" stands for what students know of a topic, the "L" for what is being learned, the "E" for evidence that supports the learning previously described, and the "W" for wondering, which leaves room for further questions. This table differs from the traditional KWL chart as it places an emphasis on observation and examination of evidence that supports what they see.
Mooney
Margaret Mooney suggested a variation to the KWL chart by adding a fifth column to the traditional chart. This column would be located between the "W" and the "L". Its purpose is to answer the question "How". This encourages the students to develop their own means of how they will discover more information. This can be quite useful in the sciences for experimentation purposes.
Additional Resources
The Learning Disabilities about.com website provides additional information on how the KWL strategy can be used, along with printable worksheets. Click here to access the Learning Disabilities about.com website.
The ReadWriteThink website provides information for teachers on how to use the KWL chart along with classroom resources, including a KWL printout in a fillable template format.
The Balanced Literacy Diet is a framework for understanding and teaching literacy developed by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. The website offers a short video that explains how the KWL chart can be used with students from grades 2 – 6 in building their knowledge. Click here to view the video.
An article by Kimber Hershberger, Carla Zembal-Saul, and Mary L. Starr provides a synthesis and an adaptation of the KWL strategy for use in the primary science classroom. Click here to read the article in full.
Ontario Prospects is a ministry resource to support student learning and career planning. Click on this link for an example of how to use the KWL method with students in Grades 7 to 10 on Page 11.
References
KWL table. Retrieved July 1, 2014 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KWL_table .
Winebrenner, S. (2006). Teaching Kids with Learning Difficulties in the Regular Classroom: Ways to Challenge & Motivate Struggling Students to Achieve Proficiency with Required Standards. Minneapolis MN: Free Spirit Publishing Inc.