Graphic organizers are a great way to help students activate their prior knowledge on a topic. Prior to asking students to read content, ask them to brainstorm what they already know about a topic. Some good graphic organizers are KWL charts, Compare and Contrasting charts to compare pre-knowledge with post-knowledge and ABC charts where students must associate one word or concept from the concept area with each letter of the alphabet. Students have fun while at the same time bringing what they know to the surface. When students activate prior knowledge before reading, it makes new learning “stick” better.