Making a Difference

Strategy instruction
Independent and successful learners tend to use a broad array of strategies to solve 
problems and monitor their own learning. Most students with learning dif
fi
culties 
do not have effective learning strategies or do not know how or when to use these 
strategies. Providing students with instruction in “how to learn” enables students 
to become more ef
fi
cient learners.
3
Research suggests that instruction in the use of strategies is most effective when it 
is explicit, especially when working with students with learning dif
fi
culties.
3
Consider the following guidelines for teaching a new strategy (Gaskins and Elliott 
1991; Woloshyn, Elliott and Kaucho 2001).
3
Create and post a step-by-step visual to introduce the speci
fi
c strategy.
1. 
Provide information about when and where to use the strategy.
2. 
Provide students with a convincing rationale for using the strategy, 
3. 
including a personal story of how you have used the strategy in your own 
learning.
Model using the strategy. Verbalize your thought process as you work 
4. 
through each step. 
Provide students with multiple opportunities to practise using the strategy, 
5. 
guiding their attempts to do so until they can carry out the strategy 
independently.
Provide students with feedback and evidence of strategy success.
6. 
Cue students to transfer the use of the strategy to other contexts. 
7. 
3. These paragraphs adapted from Expert Panel on Literacy and Numeracy Instruction for Students with 
Special Education Needs, 
Education for All: The Report of the Expert Panel on Literacy and Numeracy 
Instruction for Students with Special Education Needs, Kindergarten to Grade 6
(Toronto, ON: Ontario 
Ministry of Education, 2005), p. 65. © Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 2005. Adapted with permission.

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