Current educational policy initiatives and legislation, including No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA), rank among the most ambitious educational mandates in our country’s history. Embedded within both of these laws are requirements for high-stakes testing and school accountability that have increased the demands placed upon students and teachers.

For many students with disabilities, these new demands have been accompanied by a shift from basic skills instruction delivered in special education classrooms to an engagement in more challenging content in general education settings. Instructional approaches based on the best available research evidence can only help to meet the new challenges faced by students and teachers alike.

It is clear from the research evidence that approaches that include strategy instruction can play a major role in meeting these challenges. Strategy instruction has the power to transform passive students into active learners equipped with the tools to promote strategic planning and independent reflection. When strategy instruction is implemented as a coordinated, school-wide system, student outcomes can be even greater, leading to transfer of knowledge, skills, and strategies to other academic and social settings.

Of course, caution should be taken to avoid a focus on teaching strategies at the expense of core content instruction (Gersten & Baker, 2000). Quality professional development can help educators strike the proper balance as well as ensure faithful and sustained implementation designed to maximize instructional impact.

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