Chapter 7, page 172
whereas the European American tends to explain the murder strictly in terms of the internal characteristics
of the individual.
These differences in strategy use may very well arise from larger differences in cultural norms and
values. Niles (1995) found that Australian university students tended to report competition as a central
driving force that influenced how they approach learning, whereas Asian students studying at Australian
universities reported social approval as an important factor. Nisbett et al. (2001) argued that differences in
reasoning between East Asians and European Americans arise from a general collectivist orientation in
East Asian countries, which contrasts with a more individualistic orientation in Western countries.
There is a danger, however, in assuming that students of a particular background will employ
particular kinds of strategies. Niles (1996) found that in contradiction to a stereotype that Sri Lankan
students prefer rote memory strategies, these students actually preferred complex learning strategies. What
should you, as a prospective teacher, take away from this? Regardless of your students’ cultural
backgrounds, there is likely to be wide variation in your students’ strategy use, as well as in the underlying
theories of learning and epistemology that guide their choice of strategies. Your task, as a teacher, is to find
out the various strategies that your students are using and then to help students who need to use more
effective strategies.
Capitalizing on students’ strategic knowledge. There is limited research on transfer of strategies
from one language to another. Spanish speakers who are successful in English reading are able to transfer
strategies used in Spanish to learning in English (Jimenez, Garcia, & Pearson, 1995, 1996). Successful
bilingual learners are also explicitly aware of relationships between English and their native language.
Thus, teachers of bilingual students can capitalize on strategies that students can deploy in their first
language and help them learn to use these strategies in English, as well.
Students with Learning Disabilities
Without instruction, students with learning disabilities typically show limited use of the strategies
discussed in this chapter (Butler, 1998; Graham et al., 1998). For example, LD students exhibit these
characteristics:
Ɣ They fail to monitor their comprehension when they are reading (Swanson, 1991).
Ɣ They are poor at identifying important information and using text structure signals (Alexander, Garner
et al., 1998).
Ɣ They have difficulty summarizing and asking meaningful questions of texts (Palincsar & Brown, 1984).
Ɣ They fail to engage in adequate planning and idea generation when they are writing (Graham, 1990;
Page-Voth & Graham, 1999).
Ɣ They do not engage in meaningful revision of their writing (Graham, 1997).
It is not only that LD students do not use useful strategies; they may also have less metacognitive
control over their strategy use (Butler, 1998; Wong, 1985). This suggests that making thinking public may
have particular value for LD students so that they can gain practice at talking and thinking about strategy
use (cf. Palincsar & Brown, 1984).
LD students profit from instruction in many of the strategies presented in this chapter (Baker,
Gersten, & Graham, 2003; Page-Voth & Graham, 1999; Palincsar & Brown, 1984). Indeed, it appears that
a particularly effective technique for working with LD students is to identify strategies that they need to
learn and provide instruction in these strategies. Because many non-LD students in the class will profit
from learning the same strategies, it is often a good idea to teach the same strategies to all students. LD
students may especially benefit from the instruction.
An important question is why LD students demonstrate difficulties with metacognition and strategy
use. As we discussed in Chapter 4 (individual differences), one possible explanation is that LD students
have less working memory capacity. Another is that poor strategy use is responsible for differences in
performance on memory and other tasks. Consider a child who can recall only 5 digits on a digit span task,
in comparison with a non-LD student who can recall the more typical 7 digits. Even on a simple task such