Learning strategies: an instructional alternative for low-achieving adolescents.

As mildly handicapped students move from elementary to secondary school, they are expected to deal with increased curricuiar demands. The University of Kansas Institute for Research in Learning Disabilities has designed and validated a set of task-specific learning strategies as an instructional alternative for these students. Learning strategies teach students "how to learn" so that they can more effectively cope with increased curriculum expectations. • The challenge inherent in designing interventions to overcome or lessen the effects of a learning disability is a significant one. This challenge often grows in magnitude as learning disabled (LD) students move into adolescence and are expected to cope with the rigorous demands of the secondary school. While a number of different instructional approaches for LD adolescents have been described in the literature (Deshler, Schumaker, Lentz, & Ellis, 1984; Deshler, Warner, Schumaker, & Alley, 1983; Deshler, Lowrey, & Alley, 1979), little, if any, data have been reported regarding their efficacy. INTERVENTION DESCRIPTION AND RATIONALE One of the major research goals of the University of Kansas Institute for Research in LearnDONALD D. DESHLER is Director and JEAN B. SCHUMAKER is Research Coordinator, University of Kansas Institute for Research in Learning Disabilities, Lawrence. ing Disabilities (KU-IRLD) has been to address this void by designing and evaluating interventions for mildly handicapped adolescents (Meyen & Deshler, 1978). Given the broad range of academic deficits evidenced by older students (Deshler, Schumaker, Alley, Warner, & Clark, 1982,) that result in their inability to cope with secondary school curriculum demands. KU-IRLD staff adopted a learning strategies approach as the core component of an intervention model which has been developed and validated through 8 years of programmatic research. This intervention model is called the Strategies Intervention Model (see Schumaker, Deshler, & Ellis, 1986, for a detailed description of this model). This approach has been designed to teach students how to learn rather than to teach students specific curriculum content. Learning strategies, as defined by Deshler and Schumaker (1984), are techniques, principles, or rules that enable a student to learn, to solve problems, and to complete tasks independently. In short, instruction in the use of learning strategies is instruction on how to learn and Exceptional Children 583 how to perform tasks. For example, through a learning strategies approach, the instructional goal is to teach s tudents strategies for summarizing and memoriz ing material that has to be learned for social studies tests, rather than teaching them actual social studies content. Thus, whi le learning to use summarization and memoriza t ion strategies to improve their comprehension and retention of social studies concepts, s tudents also learn a skill that, theoretically, will he lp them acquire information in other subject areas. An ultimate goal of learning strategies instruction is to enable students to successfully analyze and solve novel problems that they encounter in both academic and nonacademic environments. The overall intent of learning strategies instruction, therefore, is to teach s tudents skills that will allow them not only to meet immediate requirements successfully, bu t also to generalize these skills to other si tuations and settings over time (Deshler & Schumaker , 1984). Three major rationales underlie a learning strategies intervent ion approach for adolescents. First, the development and application of learning strategies or metacognitive skills is significantly related to age; that is, older students consistent ly are more proficient in the use of such behaviors (Armbruster, Echols, & Brown, 1984). Second, adolescents who "learn how to l ea rn" in secondary schools will be in a much better posi t ion to learn new skills and to respond to rapidly changing information and conditions in the future (Deshler & Schumaker, 1984). Third, a learning strategies instruction approach requires s tudents to accept major responsibili ty for their learning and progress (Wong. 1985). Such a commitment must be made by s tudents if they are to truly become independent . To operationalize this learning strategies instructional approach, a set of learning strategy instructional packets was designed and fieldtested. Together, these instructional packets make up the Learning Strategies Curriculum (Schumaker, Deshler, Alley, & Warner, 1983). Each packet consists of the instructional materials and procedures needed by a teacher to train s tudents in a given learning strategy. The Learning Strategies Curriculum is organized in three major strands that correspond to the major demands of the secondary curriculum. The first s t rand includes strategies that help students acquire information from written materials. The Word Identification Strategy (Lenz, Schumaker, Deshler, & Beals, 1984) is aimed at the quick decoding of multisyllabled words. Three other strategies are aimed at increasing a student 's reading comprehension. The Visual Imagery Strategy (Clark, Deshler, Schumaker, & Alley, 1984) is used to form a mental picture of events described in passage. The Self-Questioning Strategy (Clark et al., 1984) is used to form questions about information that has not been provided by the author and to find the answers to those questions later in the passage. The Paraphrasing Strategy (Schumaker, Denton, & Deshler, 1984) is used to paraphrase the main idea and important details of each paragraph after it is read. The Interpreting Visual Aids Strategy (Lenz, Schumaker, & Deshler, in press) is used by students to gain information from pictures, diagrams, charts, tables, and maps. Finally, the Multipass Strategy (Schumaker, Deshler, Alley, & Denton, 1982) is used for attacking textbooks' chapters by using three passes over the chapter to survey it, to obtain key information from it, and to study the critical information. The second strand in the Learning Strategy Curriculum includes strategies that enable students to identify and store important information. The Listening and Notetaking Strategy (Deshler, Denton, & Schumaker, in press) enables students to identify organizational cues in lectures, to note key words, and to organize key words into outline form. The First-Letter Mnemonic Strategy (Robbins, 1982) and the Paired-Associates Strategy (Bulgren & Schumaker, in preparation) provide students with several options for memorizing key information for tests. The final strand of the Learning Strategies Curriculum includes strategies for facilitating written expression and demonstration of competence. Four strategies have been designed to enable students to cope with the heavy written expression demands in secondary schools. The Sentence Writing Strategy (Schumaker & Sheldon, 1985) provides students with a set of steps for using a variety of formulas when writing sentences. The Paragraph Writing Strategy (Schumaker, in preparation [a]) helps students organize and write a cohesive paragraph. Likewise, the Theme Writing Strategy (Schumaker, in preparation [b]) helps students organize and write an integrated fiveparagraph theme. The Error Monitoring Strategy (Schumaker, Nolan, & Deshler, 1985) is