Procedural Facilitators and Cognitive Strategies - Wiley Online Library

Learning Disabilities Practice Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 17(1), 65–77 C 2002, The Division for Learning Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children Copyright

Procedural Facilitators and Cognitive Strategies: Tools for Unraveling the Mysteries of Comprehension and the Writing Process, and for Providing Meaningful Access to the General Curriculum Scott Baker and Russell Gersten University of Oregon/ERI

David Scanlon Boston College

Abstract. A solid, emerging research base exists to inform how we provide meaningful access to the general education curriculum for students with learning disabilities (LD). For example, the presentation of challenging content to academically diverse learners can be demystified using content enhancement techniques. Additionally, a range of strategies can be taught to enhance reading comprehension and expressive writing abilities. Examples from several lines of research in comprehension and writing are used to highlight the underlying features of these empirically based approaches and to introduce the reader to the history of this expanding body of research. The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) recently conducted a nationwide consumer survey for its IDEA National Program Planning (Office of Special Education, 2000). Over 14,000 individuals with disabilities, parents, service providers, administrators, and policymakers responded to the survey, which asked them to select five areas they believed would have the greatest impact on improving the lives of children with disabilities. The top choice, chosen by 51 percent of respondents, was better access to the general education curriculum. In a related activity, the second author conducted a series of focus group interviews with a diverse group Requests for reprints should be sent to Scott K. Baker, Eugene Research Institute, 132 E. Broadway, Suite 747, Eugene, OR 97401.

of stakeholders in the educational system. The participants’ most salient concerns focused on ways to help students transfer material learned in school to day-today tasks, or, to paraphrase one parent, helping students understand “how the pieces fit together and could be used.” These concerns mirror the national survey’s finding in that discussions centered on school processes and outcomes. Both groups were similarly concerned with “access.” However, the focus groups spoke to a more complex and refined concept of access that included meaningful participation and adequate progress. In response to the findings of the nationwide survey, OSEP assembled a panel of researchers, special educators, and family members of individuals with disabilities (Office of Special Education, 2000). The charge of the panel was to articulate issues and unresolved tensions in the concept of access to the general education curriculum. A number of issues they addressed provide background for this paper. At the broadest level, the panel concluded that a better definition of curriculum access would underscore that “access” was not only about students with disabilities being allowed to take challenging classes, but about students with disabilities having a real opportunity to successfully learn challenging content. The panel similarly emphasized that working to attain fundamental skills in reading and mathematics could not be ignored. In fact, because meaningful access is only enhanced when students have strong skills in the “basics,” they stressed the importance of rigorously addressing fundamental skills. To achieve the right balance between integration of academic skill development, remediation, and meaningful access to

66

BAKER ET AL.: PROCEDURAL FACILITATORS

challenging content, the panel agreed that a candid discussion among policymakers and educators should occur. Topics of this discussion should include instruction in inclusive settings and special education classrooms and address the role special education teachers should play in these settings. One of the most critical aspects of the panel’s report was the discussion of the research base regarding how to best teach challenging content to students with disabilities. There was strong agreement that more research needs to be conducted on the development and validation of teaching and learning strategies that promote the acquisition, transfer, and real-world use of important skills and knowledge. Research on the types of learning environments that promote the effective use of more sophisticated strategies was also identified as badly needed (Office of Special Education, 2000). There was strong agreement that a substantial body of knowledge on research-based practices currently exists and should be used in teaching challenging curriculum content to students with disabilities. The panel felt that both general and special education teachers drastically underutilize this knowledge base. Furthermore, this knowledge is more fully developed in some areas than others. For example, much more is known about effectively teaching for acquisition than is known about teaching for transfer. The scientific knowledge base on the teaching of fundamentals is more advanced than the knowledge base on teaching specific content. And more is known about teaching both fundamentals and content at the primary level than at the secondary level. Despite a relative paucity of research-based practices on teaching content-area material, advances have been made in this area too, and should be used to form foundations for current teaching and further research. The purpose of this paper is to discuss research in special education that points to promising ways for teaching challenging content to students with disabilities. Our focus is on empirical research that seems to have strong potential for broad application in realschool settings. We begin by discussing a line of research on enhancing student acquisition of secondary content. We then discuss the research base on specific tools and strategies that have been effective in helping students with disabilities learn advanced reading comprehension and writing skills, both at the primary and secondary levels. We conclude with a view of potential new directions in research and teaching.

CONTENT ENHANCEMENT: EVOLUTION OF A PARADIGM A significant line of research in secondary special education teaching has been conducted over nearly two decades, designed to provide students with disabilities the support they need to learn challenging content. An important purpose of this research has been to prepare students with disabilities for success in general

education classrooms. The model of instruction advocated deviates substantially from the lecture and largegroup-discussion format that has dominated content instruction at the secondary level (Putnam, Deshler, & Schumaker, 1993). Rather, the model addresses both how students engage in content learning and how teachers present and coordinate the learning process. Beginning about 20 years ago, Alley, Deshler, and colleagues realized it was as important to teach students how to learn as it was to teach them specific content. This led to a quiet revolution in special education teaching at the high school and middle school levels (Gersten, 1998). The teaching approaches advocated by Alley, Deshler, Schumaker, and their colleagues were developed with two goals in mind:

r Enhancement of students’ learning of material presented in classes such as social studies, math, and science, and r Development of students’ abilities to learn from conventional classroom teaching. The approaches they developed centered on students acquiring strategies for content learning. Learning strategies developed in the 1980s were based on principles of behavior and task analysis, rather than on careful modeling of the performance of experts in specific content areas, as were later cognitive strategies. The most significant contribution of these approaches for students with high incidence disabilities has been the Strategies Intervention Model (SIM). This model has eight stages of instruction that teachers follow to teach specific academic strategies to their students (Ellis, Deshler, Lenz, Schumaker, & Clark, 1991). Influenced by research on cognitive-behavior modification (Meichenbaum, 1977), the stages are ordered for students to modify their inner speech guiding strategic performance (Ellis & Lenz, 1996). The primary purpose of each of the eight stages is listed in Table 1. A critical feature of the progression of strategy instruction is the transfer of responsibility for performance from the teacher to the student. As students improve their use of these strategies, the teacher’s role TABLE 1 Eight Stages of the Strategies Intervention Model: Purpose Statements 1. Students make a commitment to learning strategies that can help them do better in content-area class. 2. Present the new strategy to students so they can learn the processes involved in using it. 3. Teachers model the strategy primarily by thinking aloud and working through the strategy. 4. Students describe the learning strategy in their own words. 5. Students apply the strategy in the context of carefully selected materials and situations. 6. Students apply the strategy in the context of real-classroom demands. 7. Students learn how the strategy can be applied in other settings. 8. Students apply and adapt the strategy in other settings.

LEARNING DISABILITIES PRACTICE

shifts from that of a director of learning to one of facilitator or coach. Research to develop the SIM (and related models) has addressed the importance of getting students to understand the purpose of learning strategies and to articulate the steps involved in executing them successfully. As the students increase their strategy proficiency they also graduate from tasks tightly “controlled” in terms of difficulty to more challenging content. The final stage of the model is to prepare the students for generalization. Originally, learning strategies were conceived as ways to prepare students to “attack situations not previously encountered” (Clark, Deshler, Schumaker, Alley, & Warner, 1984, p. 145), but their success in enhancing the type of transfer implied in this goal has been limited. Typically, students with disabilities have been able to learn the necessary steps in executing the strategies and then use these strategies on tasks that are similar to the teaching tasks, but they have had limited success in applying them outside of contexts in which they were learned (Schumaker & Deshler, 1988; Wong, 1991, 1994). This problem stemmed in part from the traditional practice of teaching strategies outside the content curriculum class. Early attempts to teach cognitive strategies focused on generic skills without sufficient attention to how they are executed in specific academic domains (Wong, 1994). We now know that much of strategy use is domain specific. Generalization of strategy learning to learning content in other academic domains is often difficult (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). Teaching generic learning strategies divorced from teaching academic content tends to result in students failing to apply these strategies when it really counts. We believe the shift to teaching strategies within specific academic domains will increasingly become the norm as teachers implement IDEA’s mandate that students with disabilities have meaningful access to the general curriculum. Problems in the successful transfer of learning strategies may have been exacerbated by the separation of content taught in the regular classroom from the learning strategies taught in the resource room, a common instructional pattern in special education until quite recently. Strategies were often taught in resource settings with the intention to prepare students for general education classrooms. Attempts to understand why students failed to transfer skills across classroom settings led to an important insight. Each academic discipline has its unique ways of reasoning and structures that must be understood as part of successfully learning the content. For students with learning difficulties, acquiring strategies to succeed in multiple content settings requires being taught in these settings, even when the instruction focuses more on general learning strategies than on strategies tied specifically to subject-area content (Alexander & Judy, 1988; Jones, Palincsar, Ogle, & Carr, 1987). One good example of this is the research by Palincsar, Anderson, and David (1993), who found that the reciprocal teaching approach they had used so successfully to teach read-

67

ing comprehension could not be used in teaching science, where the nature of discourse and methods were drastically different. New approaches that bridged the essential features of reciprocal teaching with the language of science needed to be developed. Researchers have written about teaching in a way that conveys this domain-specific perspective. Jones, Palincsar, Ogle, and Carr (1987) and Cobb (1994) have called for a conception of teaching in which the classroom teacher’s role is both to convey the content of a lesson and to teach students the processes required for reasoning, analysis, and problem solving in a particular academic domain. Bulgren, Hock, Schumaker, and Deshler (1995) showed how this type of teaching could benefit students and help them successfully apply strategies they learned in new situations. Twelve high school students with learning disabilities were taught a method for identifying and grouping important information in history using a concept map. They were also taught a strategy for recalling information for test taking, which involved learning to create a mnemonic to help them recall information from their concept maps. As the researchers predicted, students made substantial improvement in creating mnemonic procedures on their own for recalling information (see also Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1989). Students also demonstrated the ability to construct different mnemonic devices based on demands of the task, a demonstration of the type of flexible thinking that Bulgren et al. (1995) were hoping to find. Most importantly, students demonstrated improved performance on content area tests, improvements directly attributable to the learning strategies intervention. One conclusion of the study is that the process of constructing concept maps with extensive support from the teacher may be a promising technique for helping students with disabilities grasp historical concepts.

Recent Shifts in Content Enhancement Significant changes have taken place in learning strategies research. Teachers are still encouraged to learn the stages of strategy instruction that have been empirically established, but are now also encouraged to take greater responsibility for manipulating activities within those stages to make them compatible with the individual learner and the content being learned. In this more extensive content enhancement model, teachers think critically about the content they cover, determine what approaches to learning need to be in operation for students to be successful, and teach with routines and instructional supports that assist students applying appropriate strategies and techniques (Bulgren, Deshler, & Schumaker, 1997). The teacher, in effect, teaches content and learning processes simultaneously. Importantly, the teacher also enhances the clarity with which she or he teachers the content, stressing what the students should learn, as well as how.

68


A study by Scanlon, Deshler, and Schumaker (1996) demonstrated the effects of this more intensive model of content enhancement. The purpose of the study was to determine the effects of training secondary content area teachers to teach learning strategies to students with and without learning disabilities. All strategies were taught in the context of units these teachers planned to cover. The primary strategy was a series of steps for recognizing the text structure used in a textbook or class lesson, identifying key information, and graphically depicting how that information was related. Results showed that students with learning disabilities made large gains in their knowledge of the strategy steps, and in the quality of the graphic organizers they developed. Their posttest scores in these areas were similar to students without disabilities. The study supported two assumptions about teaching challenging content to students with learning disabilities. First, it seems possible and feasible for students with learning disabilities to learn complex, flexible strategies in inclusive settings. Second, it seems important for students with learning disabilities to have opportunities to explain and articulate concepts to their teachers or peers in order to really grasp them. This evolution of research and the learning strategies it has produced is a direct result of the recognition of all that is involved in helping inactive (i.e., nonstrategic) learners to perform in ways like their more strategic peers. It is also a direct response to the gap between the skills of secondary students with LD and the secondary curriculum. The movement toward content enhancement has been a recognition of the roles the environment and the specific task play in determining a student’s strategic performance. Increasingly, it has intersected with the body of research that emanated from cognitive psychology in the 1980s and 1990s.

PROCEDURAL FACILITATORS TO GUIDE STRATEGIES In the mid 1980s, instructional researchers realized that algorithmic or “step by step explicit strategies” that were effective in teaching many students with disabilities how to decode or compute were not appropriate for complex, cognitive activities. Within more complex learning activities, such as comprehension, expressive writing, and problem solving, flexibility is always important, revising and refining (i.e., self-monitoring) are critical, and no two people engage in the process the same way. Researchers were aware that somehow flexibility needed to be taught. Instruction needed to include ways to decipher the meaning of paragraphs in which there was more than one main idea, ways to identify and integrate the range of character clues that may support valid inferences about the reasons characters in novels take action, and ways to communicate to students that literature and historical events can be interpreted from multiple perspectives.

Thus the dilemma was posed: How was it possible to “teach” something as mysterious as the process of writing (Graham & Harris, 1989), or discernment of the theme of a short story (Williams, Brown, Silverstein, & deCani, 1994) with the clarity and specificity often required in teaching students with LD? The field of special education has made extraordinary progress in tackling this dilemma. From the beginning, researchers were aware that teaching students when to use what they learned was often as important as teaching the strategy itself. The term “metacognition” was used frequently in early research to describe the reflective and self-monitoring nature of what was required on the part of students to learn effectively. Descriptive research consistently indicated, for example, that students with learning disabilities failed to spontaneously organize unfamiliar material, tended to ask themselves fewer questions when they read, and had difficulties transferring approaches or strategies to novel situations (Brown, 1978; Kolligian & Sternberg, 1987; Miller, 1985; Torgesen, 1977; Swanson, 1987; Wong, 1991). To address these difficulties, researchers have tried to “encapsulate” the processes used by competent readers and writers, and have used a variety of ingenious methods to teach these processes to students with disabilities. Much of the impetus for these approaches has come from cognitive psychology. These methods have been called a variety of names, including procedural facilitators (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Englert, Raphael, Anderson, Anthony, & Stevens, 1991; Graves & Montague, 1991), cognitive strategies (Harris & Pressley, 1991), and scaffolds (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). Some rely heavily on graphic organizers (Englert et al., 1991; Idol, 1987). Most involve intensive modeling and monitoring by the teacher (Graham & Harris, 1989; Wong, Butler, Ficzere, & Kuperis, 1997), while many rely heavily on peer interaction (Englert et al., 1991; Palincsar et al, 1993), and all are multifaceted. We use the term procedural facilitators to refer to a set of instructional approaches that share many common features of these various approaches and some distinct differences, particularly their concept of the teacher’s role.

Procedural Facilitators to Guide Students Toward Expert Performance Procedural facilitators are questions, prompts, or simple outlines of important learning structures that teachers use on a daily basis to help students emulate the performance of more expert learners (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1986). They also provide a common language for discussing the cognitive task or activity. The goal is to provide students with a “plan of action” for attacking the task as well as a system for providing ongoing feedback and support. This “plan of action” addresses the


learners’ need for help with organization and structure (Kolligian & Sternberg, 1987). Helping students effectively use a “plan of action” is accomplished by having competent adults or peers verbalize the processes that many proficient readers or writers or mathematicians go through when they solve academic problems. Procedural facilitators assist teachers (or peers) in verbalizing how they actually compose a piece of narrative writing, or how they know when they need to reread a troubling portion of a textbook. Facilitators provide a shared language between teachers and students and offer students a permanent reminder of the steps and strategies used by highly proficient readers or writers. Ingeniously, students are taught steps (or more fluid procedures) that outline the individualized processing modeled for them. While earlier research stressed teacher modeling and thinking aloud, subsequent research suggests that how teachers—or proficient peers—respond to students’ attempts to use the strategies or procedural facilitators is every bit as important. Concepts such as cognitive apprenticeship (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989) have been used to describe this process. Three intervention studies represent the progression in procedural facilitation practices and the evolution of the concept of cognitive apprenticeships. The first study we will discuss, on reading comprehension by Idol and her associates, demonstrates the benefits of revealing the structure of texts to students with disabilities, rather than merely informing them of what categories of information to think about. Their findings about reading instruction informed advances in writing interventions. The second set of studies, by Englert and colleagues, highlights the usefulness of graphic aids to represent processes to students and, importantly, the value of dialogue for necessary reflection. Finally, work by Graham, Harris, and others investigated necessary flexibility in the use of reflection for revisions for producing quality writing. They have also investigated the integration of procedural facilitators with more traditional strategies based on task and behavior analyses.

Story Grammar and Story Mapping as a Tool to Enhance Reading Comprehension One of the seminal studies on the use of procedural facilitators was conducted by Idol (1987), who used a story-mapping technique to enhance the reading comprehension of students with learning disabilities. The study was of particular historical importance because the researcher tried out the technique in an inclusive setting with heterogeneous groups of students with and without disabilities. Her earlier research had established the efficacy of the story-mapping procedure with a small group of students with learning disabilities (Idol & Croll, 1987). Idol’s goal was to use a procedural facilitator that would “draw the readers’ attention to the common ele-

69

ments among stories,” which she hoped would enhance the “possibility of the reader searching his or her mind for possible information” related to the text (i.e., activating background knowledge in contemporary terminology) (p. 197). In other words, the story map was to serve as a framework for integrating story elements from the text with the reader’s own experiences. The procedural facilitator used was a story map. This map required students to record information directly related to 9 or 10 story-grammar questions. The map helped students record important elements of the story. Students could do this either as they were reading or after they had finished reading. Story-grammar elements including descriptions of the setting, the problem, the actions taken to solve problems, and final outcomes. Examples of the questions used throughout the intervention include: Where did the story take place? When did the story take place? How did [Main Character] try to solve the problem? Was it hard to solve the problem? (Explain in your own words). The use of heterogeneous cooperative groups was an important contribution of Idol’s study. She hypothesized that integrating students with and without disabilities would help students with disabilities engage in a “beneficial form of vicarious learning by viewing the desired responses of more skilled readers” (Idol, 1987, p. 197). Subsequent research has established the numerous benefits of cooperative groups, including enhancing learner understanding, increasing engaged time, and maximizing practice opportunities. Results demonstrated that the three students with learning disabilities and the two low-achieving students clearly benefited from the story-mapping instruction. This benefit occurred despite the fact that these five students were reading materials written for grade levels one or more years more difficult than their placement levels indicated. On the measure of listening comprehension, the results showed that both average- and low-achieving students made gains from pretest to posttest. However, the gains made by students with disabilities were far stronger than those made by the average-achieving group. Idol found that, when given the option, students almost invariably preferred to use the maps after reading a story rather than during their reading. This finding— that students often adapt and personalize a strategy explicitly taught to them—was similar to what Adams, Carnine, and Gersten (1982) found in their research on expository text. The next wave of research began to take for granted that students will invariably adapt and personalize specific strategies. Newer research stressed flexibility in how and when the procedural facilitator was used (Beck, McKeown, Sandora, Kucan, & Worthy, 1996; Englert & Mariage, 1996; Okolo & Ferretti, 1996). A third finding in the Idol (1987) study was unexpected. During the intervention, the classroom teacher required students to keep a journal of the stories they read. Idol analyzed these stories for inclusion of

70


story-grammar elements in the students’ writing before and after the intervention. Not surprisingly, she found that prior to the intervention, students in the lowachieving group (i.e., the three students with learning disabilities and two other low-performing students) included fewer story-grammar components in their journal entries than other students. After the intervention, students in the low-achieving group showed a significant increase in the number of elements they included in the stories they wrote. In fact, four of the five students in the low-achieving group wrote stories in their journals that usually included all of the story-grammar elements they were taught. This finding showed generalization of the skills students learned during the interventions across tasks and subject areas. Numerous subsequent studies that followed Idol’s confirmed that explicitly teaching text structures such as the story map enhances reading comprehension for students with learning disabilities (Dimino, Gersten, Carnine, & Blake, 1990; Gurney, Gersten, Dimino, & Carnine, 1990; Williams, Brown, Silverstein, & deCani, 1994).

Using Text Structures to Enhance the Quality of Students’ Writing Writing instruction has become a major thrust of instructional research and an area in which the use of procedural facilitators has clear benefits. Wong, Butler, Ficzere, and Kuperis (1997) enumerated several barriers to effective writing experienced by many students with LD. Specifically, they noted that students with learning disabilities experience difficulties with both mechanical aspects of writing (e.g., spelling, grammar) and knowledge of—or comfort with—procedures utilized by skilled writers. Empirical findings over the decades have consistently shown that these barriers result in writing by students with disabilities that is often short, poorly organized, and sometimes lifeless (Isaacson, 1995). A cornerstone of the approach to teaching writing adopted by special education researchers is that the technical demands of a cognitive task, such as accuracy of spelling and punctuation, may be temporarily de-emphasized so that teachers and students can focus their intellectual energy on the conceptual aspects of writing. This is a radically different way of teaching for many special educators. Much of special education writing instruction has focused on the teaching of mechanical skills (Englert et al., 1991). This more rigid focus is probably a function of both a tradition in special education that students need to learn the basics before taking on learning more difficult concepts (Klenck & Palincsar, 1996), as well as how mysterious and difficult it is to describe and teach the writing process. A key organizing principle in this line of research is that, although there are writing conventions specific to certain genres, there is no “correct” way to construct

text. In narrative writing, for example, some writers like to begin with the climax of a story and proceed backward; others like to develop their characters before developing the plot. The approach used to construct a narrative is not what makes the story more or less engaging. A second key organizing principle is that different genres of writing are based on inherent text structures. A persuasive argument paper contains elements such as a thesis with supporting points that differ considerably from those found in narrative writing, where characters and plots are emphasized. This variability makes it difficult, if not impossible, to develop one strategy for teaching students explicitly “how to write.” Rather, good writing instruction involves teaching what Englert, Raphael, Anderson, Anthony, and Stevens (1991) called “overlapping and recursive processes.” These processes do not proceed in a particular order and one process may inform another in such a way that the author returns to previous “steps” to update or revise on a regular basis. Pioneering work in this area emanated from Englert et al. (1991). The instructional approach they developed challenges students to use text structures to generate relevant details for their writing, to link them in a comprehensible form, and then to revise their writing in relation to standard text structure conventions (Englert et al., 1991). Components of instruction included extensive teacher modeling of the inner dialogue expert writers engage in during the writing process, extensive support to students during lessons and writing sessions, procedural facilitators for students to use to guide the process, and peer collaboration through writing conferences. Englert et al. (1991) used procedural facilitators called “think sheets” to encourage students to plan, organize, write, edit, and revise their written products, in which they compared a child and his dad, or a child and her best friend, or a chimpanzee and a giraffe. Figure 1 is a sample think sheet. The authors hypothesized that students receiving this cognitive strategy instruction would perform better than comparison students on writing and reading comprehension tests and on measures of metacognitive knowledge. The study was conducted simultaneously in both general and special education settings. Students in the cognitive strategy condition received five months of instruction that consisted of four phases: text analysis, modeling of the writing process, guided student practice in composition, and independent writing. Students in the comparison classrooms received their regular writing instruction, which included opportunities to compose texts two to three times per week. Think sheets were used extensively during all four phases of the writing instruction. Results of an interview to assess students’ metacognition in writing revealed that students in the experimental group learned more about the writing process than students in the comparison group. In terms of writing ability, there was a significant main effect for organization and use of text structures favoring students in the experimental group. This


71

FIGURE 1 An example of a completed comparison/contrast organization form.

positive effect occurred across high- and low-achieving groups, as well as for students with learning disabilities. On a transfer measure, where students were asked to compose an expository text of their choice, results again revealed a significant effect favoring students in the experimental classrooms. On a transfer measure of reading comprehension, there was an effect favoring the experimental group on identifying the major parts of expository text structures and for the number of comparisons recalled. It is interesting to note that these treatment effects were due primarily to gains made by students with learning disabilities. Another important finding in the Englert et al., study was that despite huge differences favoring general education students versus students with LD on pretest mea-

sures, there were no significant differences between experimental students with and without LD on posttest writing performance. In comprehension, the only significant difference favoring students in the treatment condition was on the ability of students to recall the main idea of the text they read, a difference that can logically be linked to intensive instruction on text structure. The think sheets clearly played a central role in the writing gains made by students in the experimental group. However, it is important to emphasize that their primary purpose was to provide concrete support for the extensive interactions between teachers and students that took place about writing. It is also important to note that the task of writing expository text was not at all modified for the special education students.

72


Modification came instead in the level of guidance and extended practice provided. A final note on Englert’s findings is that while students’ writing had improved in its substance, it continued to lack style; few students developed voices as writers. Despite successfully including more elements of conventional text, student writing samples were often tedious to read and rigidly constructed. For students to begin to develop a voice as writers, peer dialogue was necessary. Developing a Personal Writing Style An extensive line of research on procedural facilitators in writing by Graham and Harris (1989) and their colleagues (Graham, MacArthur, & Schwartz, 1995; Graham, Schwartz, & MacArthur, 1993) has tackled the problem of improving the quality of writing by students with learning disabilities. In their earlier studies, Graham and Harris (1989) taught students a questionasking strategy they could use to write better quality stories. This technique was similar to the story-map questions of Idol (1987). Graham and Harris demonstrated that procedural facilitators significantly improved the writing quality of students with learning disabilities. However, like Englert et al. (1991), they found that the writing was still considerably weaker in style than the writing of their grade-level peers, being somewhat rigid and overly mechanical. In a more recent study, Graham, Schwartz, and MacArthur (1995) directly addressed the problem of how to further improve the quality and style of writing by students with disabilities and make it resemble more closely the writing produced by peers. They approached this challenge by targeting the process of revision, one of the crucial stages of the writing process. Graham et al. (1995) targeted this area because they found that students with LD, in general, “revise infrequently, or concentrate their revising efforts on proofreading . . . [on] mechanical and word-level changes, that have little or no impact on the quality of their writing” (p. 230). The authors noted that this problem is particularly acute for students with learning disabilities, who “approach the revision of their compositions as a ‘housecleaning task.’ Most of their revisions are aimed at trying to tidy up the appearance of the paper, making it neater and correcting errors of mechanics and usage as best they can” (p. 237). The authors investigated the effects of procedural facilitators on the revision techniques and final written products of students with learning disabilities. Students in the comparison condition were requested to think about what they wanted to change or add to their first drafts to make their stories better, and then rewrote their stories with the accompanying changes. In the two experimental conditions, students were taught to use procedural facilitators to add at least three

dimensions to their stories to make them better. Some students in this condition were given a sheet containing a series of prompts to help them in the revision process. The goal of these “planning sheets” was to help them organize the information they wanted to add to the final drafts of their papers. The final drafts in the experimental and comparison conditions did not differ significantly in terms of length. However, students in the experimental conditions wrote final drafts that were judged higher in terms of overall quality than the drafts of students in the comparison condition. The analysis of the changes made in the revisions is particularly interesting. Students in both the experimental and comparison conditions frequently revised their first drafts, averaging about 23 revisions per 100 words. This was comparable to the number of revisions made by average-achieving students in a pilot study. An important finding was that although the number of revisions was not influenced by instructional condition, the types of revisions were. Students in experimental conditions made more revisions that changed the meaning of the text than students in the comparison condition (47 percent as compared to 16 percent). Also, most of the revisions involving meaning change by students in the experimental condition had a positive impact on the quality of the final draft. Three out of four revisions were rated as making the text better, and the quality of these changes was rated significantly higher in the experimental condition. Findings support the conclusion that students in the experimental conditions made more complex changes (i.e., meaning change vs. mechanical) than comparison students, and made changes that more often improved the quality of their writing and final papers. In other words, with the support of a relatively simple procedural facilitator, students with disabilities were able to reflect on, critically analyze, and improve their writing. However, a word of caution is in order. Although students seemed to fill out their “revision lists” without difficulty, most changes were at the individual word level only. The procedural facilitators may have helped students organize and direct their attention, and increased their self-monitoring ability, but the revisions were more or less simple and relatively superficial improvements, largely focusing only on mechanics, rather than style or clarity. Graham et al. (1995) suggested that an optimal instructional strategy for students with learning disabilities, at least in writing, might be to pair selfmonitoring techniques with more substantive instructional methodologies such as teacher modeling, thinking aloud, and strategy instruction. This type of cognitive apprenticeship model echoes the “hybrid” approach to instruction used in studies on situated cognition in math and science (Bottge, 2001; Woodward, Carnine, & Gersten, 1988) and models for teaching writing used in the current research by Englert (1991) and her colleagues.


NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE TEACHING OF WRITING AND COMPREHENSION Procedural facilitators and cognitive strategies support students taking action. They can stimulate thinking and promote more effective organization. The classic research study by Graham and Harris (1989) intentionally juxtaposed formal questions related to story-grammar elements, such as “Who is my story about?” or “What is the problem that the character faces?” with more casual aesthetic “steps,” such as “let your mind wander,” in an attempt to actively encourage personal expression. Even researchers such as Wong (1994), who initially had difficulty including whimsical steps in their procedural facilitators or strategies, have come to realize that interactive dialogue between students and teachers or students and their peers is a critical instructional factor in enhancing the quality of students’ writing. Almost from the beginning, many researchers seemed to be implicitly aware that one of the most important advances procedural facilitators and cognitive strategies could promote was encouraging students to think aloud. These techniques could build a way to have academic discussions and promote the realization that groups of peers were essential in facilitating this process, since discussions can easily become contrived between an adult and a child. This was apparent in the seminal research of Idol (1987). Englert et al. (1991) found that when students used text structures, such as compare and contrast, their essays were well organized, but sometimes extraordinarily tedious to read. Peer feedback was necessary to breathe life into the essays and support students in their development of writing style. Even the earliest research on story grammar (Idol, 1987) used heterogeneous groups to promote dialogue. Researchers have begun to make more explicit the primarily supportive role strategies and facilitators play in helping students to develop interesting ideas to write about and to discuss with their peers ways to express those ideas effectively in their writing. MacArthur, Schwartz, Graham, Molloy, and Harris (1996) suggested that the major goal of procedural facilitators and cognitive strategies was to help students bridge the gap between students’ oral and written language, to encourage “elaborated dialogue.” Kucan and Beck (1997) note the importance of the “shift from identifying and teaching discrete strategies to focusing on students’ efforts to make sense of ideas or build their own understanding of them” (p. 285). Kucan and Beck (1997) and Gersten, Fuchs, Williams, and Baker (in press) go on to describe a more fluid, interactive mode of teaching, where multiple strategies are introduced in a short time frame, and students are coached (rather than directly taught) as to when a given strategy might be appropriate. Students’ “personalization” of strategies is actively encouraged, and comprehension instruction is, as best as possible,

73

“tailored” to students’ current ways of making meaning of text. Frequently, procedural facilitator and learning strategy researchers have drawn on the social nature of learning (Moll, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978) to help students arrive at greater degrees of independence and resultant flexibility (Englert & Mariage, 1996; Palincsar & Brown, 1989; Scanlon, Deshler, & Schumaker, 1996; Wong et al., 1997). The vehicle most commonly used today for maximizing the social nature of learning is elaborated dialogue. Elaborated dialogue, also referred to as interactive dialogue, think-alouds, and collaborative processes, is a verbal exchange about a complex cognitive activity among a teacher and students or students with each other. Dialogue can include explicit modeling of strategies, critical evaluation of verbal or written student responses, questioning, and elaborated responses. During these exchanges, students are apprenticed into higher, more detailed, and richer forms of expression and processes for higher-order activities (Englert & Mariage, 1996; Wong et al., 1997). Unlike the use of procedural facilitators, there currently is only a small body of research on the effectiveness of this approach with students with disabilities (Gersten et al., in press). One study in particular, however, does suggest its widespread potential. Wong, Butler, Ficzere, and Kuperis (1997) designed a multiple component strategy for improving the quality of essay writing by students with learning disabilities in grades 9 and 10. They combined aspects of the Englert et al. (1991) compare-contrast think sheets as the basis for composing essays and the COPS learning strategy (Schumaker, Nolan, & Deshler, 1985) as a means to check Capitalization, Overall organization during the third, or revision phase, Punctuation, and Spelling. Pairs of students took turns assuming the role of teacher/critic and checked their partner’s work for clarity, lack of ambiguity, and use of conventions. Wong et al. (1997) also included three phases of instruction, starting with extensive teacher modeling and thinking aloud, and moving toward collaborative planning with a partner and revisions based on feedback from the partner. They identified interactive dialogue as a key feature of each phase. This multicomponent intervention led to significant growth in the quality of writing maintained over time. Students’ improvements in metacognitive awareness of the writing process also were apparent. Interactive dialogue in all phases of the intervention served as the key function of helping students first to engage in the process of compare-contrast writing, and then to improve their writing. For example, during the planning phase, interactive dialogue helped two students become clearer and see information they had overlooked. For example, one student said to the other, “we’ve got enough ideas for comparison . . . we need more for contrast” (Wong et al., 1997, p. 13). Wong and her colleagues hypothesized that interactive dialogues,

74


which led students through multiple cycles of reflection, realization, and redress of problems, helped each student “see” his or her thoughts and write from another’s perspective. Elaborated dialogue between the teacher and students was central in Phases One and Two, as was dialogue among peers in Phase Three. Wong and her colleagues concluded that interactive dialogue in the context of an ongoing recursive process of reflection helped students see the inadequacies of their own writing and, in the process, develop a sense of audience. This type of “talk” about writing appeared necessary for students with learning disabilities who had trouble “translating their verbalized ideas into words and sentences” (Wong et al., 1997, p. 7). In an earlier and similar study designed to teach revision skills, Wong and colleagues (1994) found comparable results between two intervention conditions consisting of a planning strategy, coupled with interactive dialogue between teachers and students, or between students and students. Wong, Butler, Ficzere, Kuperis, Corden, and Zelmer (1994) concluded that the comparability of effects suggested that interactive dialogue per se may have been the pivotal factor in improved writing. Thus, interactive dialogues appears crucial in taking students with learning disabilities from simple to more complex states of learning. They build on students’ current level of understanding, their ability to articulate their ideas, and their ability to develop ideas and the relationships between ideas. Several researchers suggest that dialogue helps bridge the gap between oral and written language (MacArthur et al., 1996; Wong et al., 1997). The implicit theory behind studies using elaborated dialogues is that students learn through verbal interactions with teachers and peers, and that thinking aloud through dialogue leads to internalization of the procedures, processes, and ways of thinking. Internalization is assumed to result in a more independent learner who knows, and can flexibly apply, the “secrets” of the experts in a given complex, cognitive activity. Wong and colleagues (1997) noted the increasing empirical support for socially mediated learning with impressive gains in such areas as reading comprehension and writing (Bos, Anders, Fililp, & Jaffe, 1989; Palincsar & Brown, 1984; Wong et al., 1994). Contemporary research recognizes the importance of interactive dialogue between students and teachers as a means of “teaching” students reading comprehension and writing. Interactive dialogue, like all procedural facilitators, is essentially a tool that provides a common language between teachers and students to help guide dialogue on elusive topics. The fact that the procedural facilitators (think sheets, story maps, etc.) are visible helps demystify the process for students with disabilities. In other words, it seems to be less important to teach all steps in a strategy to a student than to use a strategy or procedural facilitator to initiate and focus dialogue that leads to higher levels of performance. In these interactions, teachers model ways of thinking and

students display their current ways of thinking, either with the teacher or with their peers. Teachers also respond to students’ attempts at organization, originality, and unique interpretation. Then, as part of the dialogical process of revisiting aspects of expert ways of thinking, questioning, answering, and elaborating dialogue, new ways of thinking are constructed and practiced. Focused dialogue devoted to comprehension of text has been increasingly assimilated into classwide peer tutoring, a procedure for providing students with opportunities to work cooperatively while providing strategic feedback to each other (Fuchs, Fuchs, Mathes, & Simmons, 1997; Greenwood, Carta, Hart, Kamps, Terry, Arreaga-Mayer, Atwater, Walker, Risley, & Delaquadri, 1992; Simmons, Fuchs, Fuchs, Hodge, & Mathes, 1994). These studies provide the beginnings of empirical support for the impact of elaborated dialogue on comprehension by students with disabilities. With both contemporary models of peer tutoring and contemporary approaches to teaching the process of writing and comprehending, feedback can be truly tailored to the unique abilities and perspectives of each student. We believe this recurring theme of thoughtfully integrating a variety of instructional approaches and techniques is critical if students with disabilities are going to be successful in today’s classrooms. The emphasis on integration also speaks directly to what parents of students with disabilities see as the primary challenges facing those who teach their children: an expansion of teaching repertoires, content-area classrooms that enable strategic learning, and a move away from exclusive reliance on single strategies toward the use of complex, multiple approaches that promote independence and flexibility on the part of the learner.

BRIDGING THE RESEARCH TO PRACTICE GAP: THE IMPORTANCE OF MULTIPLE TEACHING STRATEGIES TO ACHIEVE A BROAD ARRAY OF OBJECTIVES We close with a major theme generated in the focus groups supported by OSEP on means to improve practice. The participants, many of whom were parents of students with disabilities, consistently voiced concern that many teachers (be they special or general educators) often do not use more than one teaching approach to reach an instructional goal. If a student does not benefit from that approach, there is a tendency to blame the student for the failure. Parents, in particular, observed that if the approach was not successful with a student or group of students, the tendency was to persevere with that approach and make other changes in other areas, such as lowering expectations or modifying tests. This observation parallels a consistent research finding by Fuchs, Fuchs, and their colleagues (e.g., Fuchs, Fuchs, & Hamlett, 1994), who found that when teachers were presented with data indicating that a particular student was not progressing


at a desired rate, the majority simply indicated they would try to spend more time with the student, rather than seriously consider how the particular teaching approach might be contributing to the student’s difficulty. The goal for special education teachers to become adept at a variety of instructional approaches is likely to be a challenge. Most are trained to use one or two approaches and are taught that consistency and intensity of that approach are critical for special education students. The history of isolation of special education teachers from other teachers and from the general education curriculum may also contribute to these teachers’ tendency to teach using the single best (and most familiar) method they know. However, as special education students spend more time in general education classrooms and with general education curricula, special education teachers will have much more contact with a variety of teaching approaches. We predict this contact will require an increase in instructional planning between general and special educators regarding when and how different teaching approaches may be contributing to learning outcomes for students with disabilities. Teaching with Multiple Strategies Using more collaborative teaching models is likely to increase general education teachers’ familiarity with a variety of teaching methods. As this occurs, however, it will be important to study the effect of teaching multiple approaches on overall teaching quality. In one of the few implementation studies of cognitive strategy instruction, Englert et al. (1991) found the less effective teachers were those who taught the steps to the strategy in a very rigid fashion, usually those who were not overly familiar with the technique. Although these less effective teachers modeled the writing process, and even gave students a glimpse of the inner dialogue that writers engage in during monitoring and revision, they provided few opportunities for students to contribute to the construction of the text. More effective teachers engaged students in the writing process by bridging “the gap between their experiences and what they needed to know about writing” (Englert & Mariage, 1992, p. 131). The importance of this teaching quality was immediately apparent. In the more effective classrooms, once students knew how to use the action plan, the cognitive workload involved in writing was lessened so that students could actually devote energy to articulating ideas and organizing their text. This transfer of control is critical to students’ effective strategy use, but represents, perhaps, one of the most difficult aspects of teaching. For example, it may be that asking teachers to implement different approaches to writing instruction runs the risk of decreasing the quality with which any one approach is implemented. However, this potential need to simplify the complexity of any individual approach in order to broaden the range of possible approaches was addressed by fo-

75

cus group members in the interviews. Clearly, participants were talking about variety for the sake of variety, but in the context of serious professional development for teachers targeting how different strategies can help teachers reach particular instructional goals. Teachers would have to learn how different strategies might be helpful to them in the face of specific kinds of problems, and they would also need an understanding of which approaches tended to be effective with students with disabilities. CONCLUSION Throughout this article, we have stressed the importance of using multiple approaches to teaching to reach the complex goals of special education, and attempted to delineate occasions where intentional use of multiple teaching strategies leads to greater learning and greater transfer. Researchers are experimenting with a vast array of models, using a range of alternative approaches and conceptual frameworks, to begin to bridge the gap between research and practice. Addressing issues raised by parents and teachers as a means to help frame research has been a major force in contemporary professional dialogue on instructional research (Dunst, Ferguson, Singer, Bryan, Gersten, Irvin, & Keating, 1998; Turnbull & Turnbull, 1990; Carnine, 1997; Billups, 1997). This direction provides means to reduce the gap between research and practice (Beck et al., 1996; Carnine, 1997; Englert & Tarrant, 1995; Kline, Deshler, & Schumaker, 1992; Malouf & Schiller, 1995; Richardson, 1990; Schumm & Vaughn, 1995) and to create instructional approaches that are empirically validated, sophisticated, yet also feasible for classroom use. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This article is adapted, in part, from Gersten, Baker, and Pugach (with Scanlon & Chard) (in press). Preparation of the manuscript was supported, in part, from Grants No. H324C990063 and H180U60037 from the Research-to-Practice Division, Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education. We would like to acknowledge the valuable feedback on previous versions from Sylvia Smith, Tom Keating, and Janet Otterstedt and for the assistance of Shaun Kohn and Joyce Smith-Johnson in preparation of the current version. An earlier version of the article was presented at the annual conference of AERA in Chicago, IL in April 1997. REFERENCES Adams, A, Carnine, D., & Gersten, R. (1982). Instructional strategies for studying content area texts in the intermediate grades. Reading Research Quarterly, 18, 27–55.

76


Alexander, P., & Judy, J. (1988). The interaction of domain-specific and strategic knowledge in academic performance. Review of Educational Research, 58, 375–404. Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., Sandora, C., Kucan, L., & Worthy, J. (1996). Questioning the author: A yearlong classroom implementation to engage students with text. Elementary School Journal, 96(4), 385–414. Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1987). The psychology of written composition. New York: Erlbaum. Billups, L. H. (1997). Response to bridging the research-to-practice gap. Exceptional Children, 63(4), 525–527. Bos, C. S., Anders, P. L., Fillip, D., & Jaffe, L. E. (1989). The effects of an interactive instructional strategy for enhancing learning disabled students’ reading comprehension and content area learning. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 22, 384–390. Bottge, B. A. (2001). Reconceptualizing mathematics problem solving for low-achieving students. Remedial and Special Education, 22(2), 102–112. Brown, A. L. (1978). Knowing when, where, and how to remember: A problem of metacognition. In R. Glaser (Ed.), Advances in instructional psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 77–165). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32–41. Bulgren, J. A., Deshler, D. D., & Schumaker, J. B. (1997). Use of a recall enhancement routine and strategies in inclusive secondary classes. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 12(4), 198– 208. Bulgren, J. A., Hock, M. F., Schumaker, J. B., & Deshler, D. D. (1995). The effects of instruction in a paired associate strategy on the information mastery performance of students with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 10(1), 22–37. Carnine, D. (1997). Bridging the research-to-practice gap. Exceptional Children, 63(4), 513–521. Clark, F. L., Deshler, D. D., Schumaker, J. B., Alley, G. R., & Warner, M. M. (1984). Visual imagery and self-questioning: Strategies to improve comprehension of written material. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 17(3), 145–149. Cobb, P. (1994). Constructivism in mathematics and science education. Educational Researcher, 23(7), 4. Dimino, J., Gersten, R., Carnine, D., & Blake, G. (1990). Story grammar: An approach for promoting at-risk secondary students’ comprehension of literature. Elementary School Journal, 91(1), 19–32. Dunst, C., Ferguson, P. M., Singer, G. H. S., Bryan, T., Gersten, R., Irvin, L., & Keating, T. (1998). The relationship between professional practices and family involvement: A review of research (Final Report for U.S. Department of Education Grant HS92017001). Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research. Ellis, E. S., Deshler, D. D., Lenz, B. K., Schumaker, J. B., & Clark, F. L. (1991). An instructional model for teaching learning strategies. Focus on Exceptional Children, 22(9), 1–16. Englert, C. S., & Mariage, T. V. (1992). Shared understandings: Structuring the writing experience through dialogue. In D. Carnine & E. Kameenui (Eds.), Higher order thinking (pp. 107– 136). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed. Ellis, E. S., & Lenz, B. K. (1996). Perspectives on instruction in learning strategies. In D. Deshler, E. Ellis, & B. K. Lenz (Eds.), Teaching adolescents with learning disabilities (2nd ed., pp. 9–60). Denver, CO: Love. Englert, C. S., & Mariage, T. V. (1996). A sociocultural perspective: Teaching ways-of-thinking and ways-of-talking in a literacy community. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 11(3), 157–167.

Englert, C. S., Raphael, T. E., Anderson, L. M., Anthony, H. M., & Stevens, D. D. (1991). Making writing strategies and self-talk visible: Cognitive strategy instruction in regular and special education classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 28, 337–372. Englert, C. S., & Tarrant, K. L. (1995). Creating collaborative cultures for educational change. Remedial and Special Education, 16, 325–336. Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., & Hamlett, C. L. (1994). Strengthening the connection between assessment and instructional planning with expert systems. Exceptional Children, 61(2), 138–146. Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L. S., Mathes, P. H., & Simmons, D. C. (1997). Peer-assisted strategies: Making classrooms more responsive to diversity. American Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 174–206. Gersten, R. (1998). Recent advances in instructional research for students with learning disabilities: An overview. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 13(3), 162–170. Gersten, R., Fuchs, L., Williams, J. P., & Baker, S. (In press). Teaching reading comprehension strategies to students with learning disabilities. Review of Educational Research. Graham, S., & Harris, K. R. (1989). Components analysis of cognitive strategy instruction: Effects on learning disabled students’ compositions and self-efficacy. Journal of Educational Psychology, 81, 353–361. Graham, S., MacArthur, C., & Schwartz, S. (1995). Effects of goal setting and procedural facilitation on the revising behavior and writing performance of students with writing and learning problems. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87(2), 230–240. Graham, S., Schwartz, S., & MacArthur, C. (1993). Learning disabled and normally achieving students’ knowledge of the writing and the composing process, attitude toward writing, and self-efficacy. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 26, 237–249. Graves, A., & Montague, M. (1991). Using story grammar cueing to improve the writing of students with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 6, 246–250. Greenwood, C. R., Carta, J. J., Hart, B., Kamps, D., Terry, B., Arreaga-Mayer, C., Atwater, J., Walker, D., Risley, T., & Delaquadri, J. (1992). Out of the laboratory and into the community: 26 years of applied behavior analysis at the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project. American Psychologist, 47, 1464– 1474. Gurney, D., Gersten, R., Dimino, J., & Carnine, D. (1990). Story grammar: Effective literature instruction for high school students with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 23, 335–342. Harris, K., & Pressley, M. (1991). The nature of cognitive strategy instruction: Interactive strategy construction. Exceptional Children, 57, 392–404. Idol, L. (1987). Group story mapping: A comprehension strategy for both skilled and unskilled readers. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 20, 196–205. Idol, L., & Croll, V. J. (1987). Story-mapping training as a means of improving reading comprehension. Learning Disability Quarterly, 10, 214–229. Isaacson, S. (1995). A comparison of alternative procedures for evaluating written expression. Presentation at annual meeting in February of Pacific Coast Research Conference, Laguna Beach, CA. Jones, B. F., Palincsar, A. S., Ogle, D. S., & Carr, E.G. (1987). Strategic teaching and learning: Cognitive instruction in the content areas. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Kline, F. M., Deshler, D. D., & Schumaker, J. B. (1992). Implementing learning strategy instruction in class settings: A research perspective. In M. Pressley, K. R. Harris, & J. T. Guthrie


(Eds.), Promoting academic competence and literacy in school (pp. 361–406). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Kolligian, J., & Sternberg, R. J. (1987). Intelligence, information processing, and specific learning disabilities: A triarchic synthesis. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 20(1), 8–17. Kucan, L., & Beck, I. L. (1997). Thinking aloud and reading comprehension research: Inquiry, instruction, and social interaction. Review of Educational Research, 67, 271–299. MacArthur, C., Schwartz, S., Graham, S., Molloy, D., & Harris, K. R. (1996). Integration of strategy instruction into a whole language classroom: A case study. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 11, 168–176. Malouf, D. B., & Schiller, E. P. (1995). Practice and research in special education. Exceptional Children, 61(5), 414–424. Mastropieri, M. A., & Scruggs, T. E. (1989). Mnemonic social studies instruction: Classroom applications. Remedial and Special Education, 10, 40–46. Meichenbaum, D. (1977). Cognitive-behavior modification. New York: Plenum Press. Miller, P. H. (1985). Metacognition and attention. In D. L. ForrestPressley, G. E. MacKinnon, & T. G. Waller (Eds.), Metacognition, cognition and human performance (Vol. 2., pp. 181–218). New York: Academic Press, Inc. Moll, L. C. (Ed.). (1990). Vygotsky and education: Instructional implications and applications of sociohistorical psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Office of Special Education. (2000). Comprehensive planning for the Part D national programs. Retrieved September 4, 2001, from http://www.ed.gov/offices/OSERS/OSEP/index.html. Okolo, C. M., & Ferretti, R. P. (1996). Knowledge acquisition and technology-supported projects in the social studies for students with learning disabilities. Journal of Special Education Technology, 13(2), 91–103. Palincsar, A. S., Anderson, C., & David, Y. M. (1993). Pursuing scientific literacy in the middle grades through collaborative problem solving. Elementary School Journal, 93, 643–658. Palincsar, A. S., & Brown, A. L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities. Cognition and Instruction, 1(2), 117–175. Palinscar, A. S., & Brown, A. L. (1989). Classroom dialogues to promote self-regulated comprehension. In J. Brophy (Ed.), Advances in research on teaching (pp. 35–72). Greenwich, CT: Jai Press. Putnam, L., Deshler, D., & Schumaker, J. (1993). The investigation of setting demands: A missing link in strategy instruction. In L. Meltzer (Ed.), Strategy assessment and instruction for students with learning disabilities (pp. 325–354). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed. Richardson, V. (1990). Significant and worthwhile change in teaching practice. Educational Researcher, 19(7), 10–18. Scanlon, D., Deshler, D. D., & Schumaker, J. B. (1996). Can a strategy be taught and learned in secondary inclusive classrooms? Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 11(1), 41–57.

77

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1986). Written composition. In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook on research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 778–803). New York: Macmillan. Schumaker, J. B., & Deshler, D. D. (1988). Implementing the regular education initiative in secondary schools: A different ball game. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 21(1), 36–42. Schumaker, J. B., Nolan, S. M., & Deshler, D. D. (1985). The errormonitoring strategy. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas. Schumm, J. S., & Vaughn, S. (1995). Meaningful professional development in accommodating students with disabilities: Lessons learned. Remedial and Special Education, 16, 344–353. Simmons, D. C., Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L. S., Hodge, J. P., & Mathes, P. G. (1994). Importance of instructional complexity and role reciprocity to classwide peer tutoring. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 9, 203–212. Swanson, H. L. (1987). Information-processing theory and learning disabilities: An overview. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 20, 3–7. Torgesen, J. (1977). The role of nonspecific factors in the task performance of learning disabled children: A theoretical assessment. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 10(1), 33–39. Turnbull, A. P., & Turnbull, H. R., III. (1990). Families, professionals, and exceptionalities: A special partnership. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. In M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Williams, J. P., Brown, L. G., Silverstein, A. K., & deCani, J. S. (1994). An instructional program in comprehension of narrative themes for adolescents with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 17, 205–221. Wong, B. Y. L. (1991). The relevance of metacognition to learning disabilities. In B. Y. L. Wong (Ed.), Learning about learning disabilities (pp. 232–258). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Wong, B. Y. L. (1994). Instructional parameters promoting transfer of learned strategies in students with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 17, 110–120. Wong, B. Y. L., Butler, D. L., Ficzere, S. A., & Kuperis, S. (1997). Teaching adolescents with learning disabilities and low achievers to plan, write, and revise compare-contrast essays. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 12(1), 2–15. Wong, B. Y. L., Butler, D. L., Ficzere, S. A., Kuperis, S., Corden, M., & Zelmer, J. (1994). Teaching problem learners revision skills and sensitivity to audience through two instructional modes: Student-teacher versus student-student interactive dialogues. Learning Disability Research & Practice, 9, 78–90. Woodward, J., Carnine, D., & Gersten, R. (1988). Teacher problem solving through computer simulations. American Educational Research Journal, 25(1), 7–28.