Why Use Strategy Instruction?

Students with learning disabilities (LD) constitute by far the largest group of students with special needs. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2010 there were more than 2,400,000 students from ages 6 to 21 served in federally supported programs for LD. Students with LD constitute 44.6% of the special education population and 4% of the total school enrollment, according to most recent figures (U.S. Department of Education, 2008). Although LD is by far the largest category of disability, the number of new students identified as having LD has shown a slight decrease over the last 4 years (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). Whether this is due to changes in the actual number of students with LD or to changes in identification procedures is still not clear.

A learning disability affects nearly every aspect of a child's life and is a lifelong challenge (Lerner, 2000). Students with LD are often caught in a vicious spiral of school failure. Their learning difficulties lead to a slower development of academic skills and abilities, which in turn impedes new learning (Stanovich, 1986). As a result of the repeated cycle of failure, these students fall further and further behind. According to the U.S. Department of Education (2008), students with LD are at greatly increased risk for dropping out: Nearly 40% of students with LD fail to graduate from high school with a standard diploma. The academic problems also result in a lower engagement rate in postsecondary schooling, employment, or both, compared to typically achieving students (Murray, Goldstein, & Edgar, 1997). Thus, the need to address the academic achievement of students with LD is critical in order to improve their academic outcomes.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide background information on LD, discuss those characteristics of students with LD that affect instruction in general and strategy instruction in particular, and provide a rationale for the use of strategy instruction. Readers who are interested in more in-depth information on these topics should refer to Swanson, Harris, and Graham (2003). In this chapter, we first present definitions of LD and briefly discuss the history of this category. Next, we describe some important characteristics of students with LD and how our conceptualization of LD has changed over time. Finally we make a case for the use of strategy instruction with students with LD. Note that the use of strategy instruction is not limited to students with LD. Research clearly indicates that strategy instruction is effective for the great majority of students who struggle in academic areas.

WHAT IS A LEARNING DISABILITY?

LD has been recognized as a category of disability under federal law since 1975. The current legal definition of LD is written into the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA); however, as Table 1.1 shows, other organizations have proposed their own definitions of LD that differ substantially, and exactly how to define LD has been, and continues to be, a controversial area. This controversy is due, in part, to the highly heterogeneous nature of the students who are defined as LD. Students with LD manifest a number of different problems in academic, behavioral, and social–emotional areas. Moreover, students with LD may exhibit vastly different profiles both within and across these areas. For example, some students may have serious problem with reading but will excel at mathematics. Others may have difficulties in mathematics, but not in reading. Table 1.2 shows examples of the subtypes of LD currently identified by researchers. Note that the problems of students with LD are not limited to academics. Some students will have serious problems with self-esteem or depression, whereas others have little or no problem in these areas but may exhibit serious behavior problems. Attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) also occurs in around 25% of students with LD (Reid & Johnson, 2012). Another factor that contributes to confusion in the area of LD is that the field cuts across a number of professional disciplines, such as education, psychology, medicine, and sociology. Each of these disciplines brings its own perspective to LD, and like the proverbial blind man and the elephant, each focuses on a different aspect of LD. As a result, there are differences across professional groups on the terminology that should be used to describe LD, and on which aspects of LD should and should not be included in the definition.

Although there is a lack of consensus on how to define LD, there is a practical consensus on how students with LD should be identified. Despite the fact that all of the definitions of LD contain references to its causes (e.g., disorders in basic psychological processes, neurological origins, central nervous system dysfunction) and that difficulties in academic areas are often described in medical language (e.g., dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia), these factors rarely, if ever, play a role in diagnosis. In practice, LD is a category of underachievement, and students with LD are identified by their chronic and severe academic difficulties. Until 2004, discrepancy formulas were commonly used to determine if a child should be labeled as LD. Mercer (1997) noted that over 90% of states include a discrepancy component in the identification process. These discrepancy formulas assessed the difference between ability, as determined by the results of intelligence tests, and academic achievement, as assessed by standardized tests. If the difference between the child's presumed ability and actual achievement was large enough, the child could be identified as having a learning disability. Discrepancy formulas, though commonly used, came under scrutiny due to concerns pertaining to their validity and also because the use of discrepancy formulas required schools to wait until a student exhibited serious academic deficiencies before they could intervene (Fuchs, Fuchs, & Compton, 2004).

Because of concerns over the validity of discrepancy approaches and the "wait-to-fail" approach inherent in their use, the latest version of IDEA (2004) made a dramatic change in the approach that schools are allowed to use in identifying students with LD. Schools are no longer required to determine whether any discrepancy exists. The approach now used in schools, response to intervention (RTI), is based on a principle of early intervention. In this approach, all students in a classroom receive effective instruction. If a student exhibits problems (e.g., fails to progress academically at an acceptable rate), the student is given additional...