The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of review question and content object as advanced organizer used for prior knowledge activation in an introductory computer programming. The students' engagement when using the strategies was examined to reach the primary findings. Content object (CO) as the advanced organizer to activate prior knowledge used before a new programming concept was learnt. Review questions (RQ) on programming concepts and solutions were designed to encourage the paper-pen method. Findings have shown similar performance in post-test. The outcome of this study showed CO useful to foster better learning programming. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.