Principle 5: Knowledge is essential to skill building.
Children’s knowledge about the world around them (“knowledge that”) is an essential part of skill building (“knowledge to”).
Note: Unconstrained Kids unpacks, translates, and integrates academic research and data about constrained and unconstrained skills for people that run, fund, and assist organizations that teach and serve kids. This post is part of a series that describes 14 key principles of skill building I identified from the Science of Learning and Development. (Especially Dynamic Skill Theory.) Like everything on this Substack, this post is a work-in-progress. I will make updates as needed. Citations are included at the end. Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.
Last updated: June 4, 2025
Key Takeaway
Skill is the ability to think and act in an organized way in a specific context (Immordino-Yang and Fischer, 2010). Children’s knowledge about the world around them (“knowledge that”) is an essential part of skill building (“knowledge to”). We need to seek and develop opportunities inside and outside of the classroom to give children the opportunity to build both types of knowledge.
“The development of complex dynamic skills does not occur in isolation; it requires the layering and integration of prerequisite skills and domain-specific knowledge, as well as the influence of contextual factors.” (Cantor et al., 2019)
Knowledge is the ability to use facts, principles, and ideas to decide and do complex tasks (Cantor et al., 2019). This definition implicitly incorporates the central concepts of “knowledge that” and “knowledge how.”
“Knowledge that” concerns conceptual or content knowledge: vocabulary, facts, ideas, theories, principles, concepts. “Knowledge how” involves competencies and skills. This type of knowledge concerns how to do a specific task or action (Rata, 2019).
“Knowing how informs knowing that, and vice versa” (Mascolo, 2009). Both types of knowledge are essential for learning and development. Knowledge is both “caught and taught.” “Knowledge that” is more readily learned through explicit instruction.
“Knowledge how” is usually acquired through practice, experience, and observation. Knowledge is acquired in both formal and informal learning experiences (Johnson & Majewska, 2022). There are opportunities for “knowledge how” experiences inside and outside of formal classroom settings.
All new knowledge and skills are built from existing knowledge and skills (Mascolo, 2009). Children’s prior knowledge and experiences have a strong influence on learning (Bruer, 2008; Osher et al., 2017). We acquire facts to the degree they can be integrated with what we already know and have experienced (Dehaene, 2011).
General knowledge represents children’s breadth and depth of understanding of their social and physical environment (i.e., the social, physical and natural world) and their ability to draw inferences and comprehend implications (West et al., 2000). It’s important to keep in mind that children’s prior knowledge could be correct or incorrect. It could also be incomplete or inconsistent with what is being taught (Cantor et al., 2019).
Knowledge is critical for reading comprehension (Hirsch, 2003; Pearson, et al., 2020; Catts, 2022). Content knowledge, background knowledge, text structure knowledge, and morphological knowledge1 are key inputs to successful reading comprehension.
Vocabulary, a critical component skill for both reading and math, is also a type of knowledge. “The knowledge of a word not only implies a definition, but also implies how that word fits into the world” (Stahl, 2005).
Factual (or declarative) knowledge, procedural knowledge, and conceptual knowledge are the three primary components of mathematics. Hattan and Lupo (2020) remind us there are multiple types of knowledge that children bring to bear for reading comprehension (and presumably mathematical thinking): cultural, linguistic, principled, strategic, multimodal, multiple text use, and conditional.
These different types of knowledge cut across “knowledge how” and “knowledge to. The breadth and depth of these different aspects of knowledge justify its description as a “large problem space” to be solved (Snow & Kim, 2007).
Knowledge is complex, has multiple dimensions, and requires significant effort to build strong, relevant interconnections (schema). Any assessment of knowledge can only provide a partial snapshot of a child’s ability to use facts, principles, and ideas to decide and do complex tasks.
But wait, there’s more
Works Cited
Bruer, J. T. (2008). Building bridges in neuroeducation. In A. M. Battro, K. W. Fischer, & P. Léna (Eds.), The educated brain (pp. 43–58). Cambridge University Press.
Cantor, P., Osher, D., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2019). Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children learn and develop in context. Applied Developmental Science, 23(4), 307–337.
Catts, H. W. (2022). Rethinking how to promote reading comprehension. American Educator, 45(4), 26.
Dehaene, S. (2011). The number sense: How the mind creates mathematics. Oxford University Press.
Hattan, C., & Lupo, S. M. (2020). Rethinking the role of knowledge in the literacy classroom. Reading Research Quarterly, 55, 283–298.
Hirsch, E. D. (2003). Reading comprehension requires knowledge of words and the world. American Educator, 27(1), 10–13.
Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Fischer, K. W. (2010). Neuroscience bases of learning. In V. G. Aukrust (Ed.), International encyclopedia of education (3rd Edition, pp. 310–316). Elsevier.
Johnson, M., & Majewska, D. (2022). Formal, non-formal, and informal learning: What are they, and how can we research them? Cambridge University Press & Assessment Research Report.
Mascolo, M. F. (2009). Beyond student-centered and teacher-centered pedagogy: Teaching and learning as guided participation. Pedagogy and the Human Sciences, 1(1), 3–27.
Osher, D., Cantor, P., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2017). Science of learning and development: A synthesis. American Institutes for Research.
Pearson, P. D., Palincsar, A. S., Biancarosa, G., & Berman, A. I. (Eds.). (2020). Reaping the rewards of the reading for understanding initiative. National Academy of Education.
Rata, E. (2019). Knowledge‐rich teaching: A model of curriculum design coherence. British Educational Research Journal, 45(4), 681–697.
Snow, C. E., & Kim, Y.-S. (2007). Large problem spaces: The challenge of vocabulary for English language learners. In R. K. Wagner, A. Muse, & K. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Vocabulary acquisition and its implications for reading comprehension (pp. 123–139). Guilford.
Stahl, S. A. (2005). Four problems with teaching word meanings (and what to do to make vocabulary an integral part of instruction. In E. H. Hiebert & M. L. Kamil (Eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice. Erlbaum.
West, J., Denton, K., & Reaney, L. M. (2000). The kindergarten year: Findings from the early childhood longitudinal study, kindergarten class of 1998-99. (NCES 2001-023). National Center for Education Statistics.
Morphological knowledge is the understanding of how words are built from smaller, meaningful pieces (e.g., root words, prefixes, suffixes, etc.).