It can feel like meeting the needs of pupils with SEND requires teachers to learn a new language. Whilst a specific understanding of a range of types of SEND is often needed, well-meaning teachers and leaders may feel they lack the detailed knowledge to meet these needs in class.
The EEF’s evidence around ‘cognitive strategies’ can be a useful reassurance to teachers that sometimes (but not always) the answers lie very much within the language of teaching and learning that classroom practitioners will already know.
Cognitive strategies
The term ‘cognitive strategies’ refers to the techniques teachers use that explicitly support pupils to learn and retain information. As adult learners, we often find our own cognitive strategies without needing to be taught them. Whether it’s remembering a phone number, learning an instrument or studying for an NPQ, many of us will have found our own ‘cognitive strategies’ to help us to learn successfully.
Some of our pupils, and many of those with SEND in particular, may lack the skills to select appropriate strategies independently. They need to be supported to do this.
“You might remember this by…”
I have taught classes where I’ve looked at an upcoming curriculum topic and felt the weight of challenge will be too great for some pupils. Whether or not these pupils have SEND, I believed the depth and breadth of coverage would present a difficulty.
It was therefore my responsibility to find better ways to deliver the content. I tried to build into each lesson an explicit method for remembering the content being covered that day. Leaning on the EEF’s ‘Special Educational Needs Evidence Review’ and the ‘Five-a-day’ approach in particular, I explicitly taught pupils a cognitive strategy for thinking about/remembering content, so that it was never expected that pupils just stumbled across their own strategy.
When a teacher says, “You might remember this by…”, they are providing the child with a cognitive strategy that can support secure and longer-term retention of the content.
Such cognitive strategies can serve more than one purpose. They can support pupils to understand informational text, such as a new chapter of a textbook. They can support advances in reading and writing. Alongside the teaching of metacognitive strategies, they can develop the independence of a learner.
Following the evidence
Two types of cognitive strategy recommended in the EEF’s evidence review are:
Mnemonic interventions
“The findings of this review strongly support the efficacy of mnemonic interventions across study methods, educational settings, student ages, and disabilities in the improvement of academic performance, typically measured by recall of word meanings or factual information.”
(Wolgemuth et al, 2008)
Wolgemuth et al (2008) found that mnemonic interventions can lessen the chance of new knowledge being lost.
This might be a ‘letter mnemonic’ to learn the order of mathematical operations (i.e. BIDMAS), the colours of the rainbow (‘Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain’) or the spelling of ‘because’ (‘big elephants can’t always understand small elephants!’). It might be a keyword mnemonic or a peg-word mnemonic, which are explained here.
Graphic organisers
“Across several conditions, settings, and features, the use of graphic organizers was associated with increases in vocabulary knowledge, comprehension, and inferential knowledge.”
(Dexter et al, 2011)
Extensive research supports the use of graphic organisers for pupils with SEND (Dexter, 2011). Organising information visually can support pupils’ understanding of content, making abstract learning more concrete and reducing reliance solely on the verbal.
Examples might be a Frayer model, a Venn diagram, a knowledge organiser, a T‑chart of pros and cons, a mindmap or a timeline. It’s clear how this visual representation of information might support understanding for a child who struggles with their executive functioning, or who has a delay in language. This video shows how and why such an approach might be taken.
A Frayer model: click here to download a freely editable template
While the strength of evidence behind these two approaches is welcome, teachers should also consider what ‘cognitive strategies’ they can embed within their own classroom. The chosen strategy may vary with the subject, age group and current ability of a class, but the principle remains the same – that we should use cognitive strategies so that new content can be truly understood, and truly learned over time.
References
EEF Evidence Review, 2020
Dexter, D. D., & Hughes, C. A. (2011). Graphic Organizers and Students with Learning Disabilities: A Meta-Analysis. Learning Disability Quarterly, 34(1), 51 – 72.
Wolgemuth, J. R., Cobb, R. B., & Alwell, M. (2008). The effects of mnemonic interventions on academic outcomes for youth with disabilities: A systematic review. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 23(1), 1 – 10. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.15…