Effective Instructional Design and Delivery for Teaching Task-Specific Learning Strategies to Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

This article proposes that how learning strategies are taught to students with learning disabilities (LD) is as important as the strategies themselves. Moreover, the preponderance of existing research supports an explicit approach for designing and delivering lessons for teaching students with LD to learn and use task-specific learning strategies. To frame this discussion, the article presents a general description of task-specific learning strategies as well as an explanation as to why many students with LD need instruction in this area. Next, it offers the design and content features of task-specific strategies found in existing strategy curricula, followed by a brief summary of the research on effective elements of instruction for teaching skills and strategies to students with LD. The remainder of.the article focuses on how to teach task-specific learning strategies in ways that incorporate identified effective and explicit teaching methodologies that address a number of learning characteristics associated with learning disabilities.