SIOP building Background

Posted by MichealH Alexander on February 24th, 2021

Building Background simply means preparing students for what they are about to learn.  In a way, this component is all about starting where the students are, not where they aren't.  SIOP examines this through the lens of both content and language. SIOP building Background

SIOP Component #2:  Building Background

This component of SIOP encourages teachers to consciously try and connect students to both the content and language of the lesson.  The three features (below) remind educators of three important factors:  First, helping students focus on the familiar first is a good place to start.  Next, students come with valuable knowledge and skills that need to be used.  Finally, vocabulary must be a conscious, sustained effort.  Once again, SIOP helps teachers consciously attend to language.

SIOP helps students make conscious connections with past & present learning

The amount of time that a teacher may spend building background depends on how foreign the content and language are to the students.  Talking about living in an igloo to a Polynesian student body may take some background building.  Likewise, the idea of emphasizing vocabulary may take a little or a lot of effort depending on a variety of factors.  Some students may not need a lot of it while others may need a significant amount of support.  That's why we teachers much consciously attend to it.

SIOP Comprehensible input

Comprehensible Input is the measurement of how easily someone can understand something.  In this component, the SIOP framework asks teachers to consider how comprehensible key aspects of their teaching is to the students they teach.

SIOP Component #3:  Comprehensible Input

This component of SIOP encourages teachers to consciously make the content and the language accessible to the students.  The first of the three features (see below) under this component deal with making sure students understand your speech, the second wants teachers to insure students understand the task, and the final feature pertains to student understanding of the concept being taught.  There it is again:  that content and language connection that SIOP brings.  This K-12 teaching framework encourages teachers to make sure that students can understand the lesson's content and language.

A teacher's natural reaction to the importance of making sure students are grasping the main ideas of a discussion most probably will be an emphatic, "No, duh."  However, cultivating comprehension in the classroom takes more skill than merely speaking the same language as the students.  The lesson's focus plays a role: its level of difficulty varies; The students' background influences the comprehensibility; Finally, the way the teacher connects the students to the content and language also has an impact.