一般普遍認為文本本身並無法充分代表故事應有的內涵，他們反而可以被視為是引導讀者觸發與結合背景知識以形成連貫性心智模式的指導語。因此，讀者有必要加入自己的背景知識，並且與文本訊息連結，才有閱讀理解。然而，文本往往不會清楚顯示出到底缺少什麼訊息，所以讀者就必須進行該有的推論，以維持文章的連貫性。研究指出，理解能力弱的學生可能因為他們無法觸發相關的背景知識以進行應有的推論。在本研究當中，我們教導11歲學生透過利用圖表組織觸發相關的背景知識：有些圖表需要填入文本訊息，有些則必須填入讀者的背景知識。結果發現，這樣的教學不僅有助於學生的推論能力，也能提升他們整體的閱讀理解。本文提出兩個該研究的限制：首先，教導如何觸發背景知識可能對於閱讀說明文比閱讀敘述文重要，因為讀懂說明文較需依賴抽象的背景知識，而非具體有感的切身經驗；其次，過度依賴背景知識可能會妨礙學生學習與本身先備知識或信念矛盾的新知。本文最後呼籲複製此類的研究，並且主張激發背景知識的教學應該與「原因－結果」、「比較－對照」與「問題－解決」等常見之文章結構的教學整合。

It is easy to see that texts do not tell the whole story. Rather, they can be seen as detailed instructions to readers about which background knowledge they should activate and combine into a coherent mental model. There fore, readers will have to add knowledge and link information from the text with relevant background knowledge. In many cases, the text does not exhibit any explicit signal that something is missing, and the reader has to make an inference to maintain the global coherence of the text. It has been shown that students with poor comprehension sometimes fail to make such knowledge-demanding inferences because they fail to activate the relevant knowledge. In a first study, 11-year-old students were taught to activate relevant background knowledge by means of graphic organisers: some boxes had to be filled with information from the text, while others were to be filled with information from the reader's background knowledge. The teaching turned out to be highly effective not only for inference making in reading, but also for reading comprehension in general. Two limitations are discussed. First, teaching to activate background knowledge is probably much more important for comprehension of expository texts than for typical narrative texts. This is so because comprehension of expository texts depends much more on background knowledge that is abstract, not first hand experience and thus not immediately available. Second, an over-reliance on background knowledge may stand in the way for learning something new that is in conflict with prior knowledge or beliefs. The paper ends with a call for replication studies. It is further suggested that the teaching of knowledge activation for inference making may be integrated into the teaching of common text structures such as cause-consequence, compare-contrast, and problem-solution.