Difficulty with spelling is a perennial challenge for students with learning disabilities. Several decades of research, however, have identified both fundamental linguistic concepts and instructional approaches that, when understood by a teacher, can be applied to teach students with learning disabilities to spell. In this article, a brief history…

Spelling is a subject that often opens a chasm between "haves" and "have-nots". Students with spelling power, the haves, pick up new spellings almost effortlessly, acing their spelling tests after a few minutes of review. In contrast, the have-nots may painstakingly copy out each word 10 times the night before the test and still fail the test the…

Working memory has been called the "door to learning" (think the library) and is strongly related to performance in reading comprehension and problem-solving. Persons with strong working memory have a wide open door for acquiring all types of new information. They are able to hang on to new information, work with it, integrate it with lots of…

The paper describes the performance of three children with specific visuospatial working memory (VSWM) impairments (Study 1) and three children with visuospatial (nonverbal) learning disabilities (Study 2) assessed with a battery of working memory (WM) tests and with a number of school achievement tasks. Overall, performance on WM tests provides…

The author proposes two theoretical constructs from cognitive psychology planning and limited central processing to aid understanding of the complexity and inefficiences in study performance of learning disabled (LD) children due to memory problems. Applies the constructs to memory development and instruction and provides recommendations for…

This article examines the various types and functions of mnemonic strategies that may be used to expedite recall in students with learning disabilities, reviews the research concerning mnemonics, and provides a critical analysis of mnemonics as it relates to people with learning disabilities. (DB)

The document presents the theoretical background and empirical research supporting lessons which teach study skills to adolescents, especially those with learning disabilities. A section presenting the psychological rationale for training study skills considers the nature of studying and its psychological demands, studying as an active process,…

Studies indicate that individual differences in strategy use among mentally retarded and learning disabled students can be explained by a metacognition model which integrates three components--Specific Strategy Knowledge, Metamemory Acquisition Procedures, and General Strategy Knowledge (including beliefs about the causes of successful…