The Effect of Background Knowledge on Children’s Comprehension

In this study, we examined whether readers use different processing strategies for different texts. Seventeen sixth-grade primary school students participated. Each participant completed a think-aloud process and a free-recall process by reading two texts. The data obtained were analyzed qualitatively. The results indicated that the comprehension strategies of the readers changed according to the text being processed. When the readers processed a text about which they had strong background knowledge, they could monitor their comprehension process more efficiently and render a more coherent reconstruction of the texts.