Schema Theory

The schema theory involves how a person perceives the world and the things around them. It implies that a person’s prior knowledge is essential in order for him or her to fully comprehend what is read. "Schemata are a person's organized clusters of concepts related to objects, places, actions, or events. Each schema represents a person's knowledge about a particular concept and the interrelationships among the known pieces of information" (Roe, Smith, & Burns, 2009, p. 212).

Words are labels for concepts. If students are confused by the label or the concept, they won't be able to understand what they are reading.

There are four situations that are typically encountered when teaching beginning readers:

A student has the concept, but needs the label. The student knows what an elephant is, but he needs help decoding the word.
A student has the label, but needs the concept. The student has phonetically worked out and correctly said the word “interview,” but she doesn't know the meaning of the word.
A student has the label attached to the wrong concept, and the misconception must be corrected. A student knows that the word “spring” means something that is wound up to power his toys, but is confused when the story mentions the deer sipping from the spring.
A student has neither the concept, nor the label. The student does not know the word or its meaning, and will need help to define the concept and attach it to the label.

Understanding schema theory is helpful when selecting texts for your students to read. If students do not have enough prior knowledge or schema, for a particular story or subject, they won’t be able to relate to the text.

For instance, students from the inner-city may not have the schema to fully comprehend a book about a farm, while rural students may not be able to fully comprehend a Sesame Street book. Before introducing books to your students you should question them to find out what they know about the subject. Then help them build the necessary schema through discussion.