Strategy Mastery by At-Risk Students: Not a Simple Matter

Teachers have succeeded in teaching at-risk students, including those with learning disabilities, to master and apply complex learning strategies. The majority of this instruction has been provided in resource rooms or other remedial settings where intensive and systematic instruction has been possible. Increasingly, teachers in regular classrooms are being asked to provide learning strategy instruction to diverse classes that include students with disabilities. This expectation presents many challenges to the classroom teacher, including the creation of an instructional balance between content and strategies instruction while at the same time ensuring both the interest and growth of all students in an academically diverse class. In this article we review the results of a line of programmatic research on learning strategies instruction that has been conducted on students with learning disabilities. From this research, a set of instructional principles about how to teach learning strategies to at-risk students has emerged. These principles and implications for teaching strategies to at-risk students in regular classrooms are presented.