Journal Article

Does Cognitively Focused Instruction Improve the Academic Performance of Low-Achieving Students?

Kearns, Devin M., Fuchs, Douglas

2013

Overview

Stakeholders are debating the value of cognitively focused instruction for students who have not benefited from a skills-based approach. Much of the discussion, however, is occurring without recognition of research that has been conducted in the past 2 decades. In this article, we reviewed the research. Electronic databases and hard copies of scholarly journals were searched; 239 references were identified; and 50 pertinent studies were analyzed to determine the effects of cognitively focused instruction—delivered alone or in combination with academic instruction—on students described as demonstrating poor academic achievement, learning disabilities, or specific cognitive deficits. Findings suggest that several cognitive interventions accelerated low-achieving students academic progress. Nevertheless, when the research is taken as a whole—when the pertinent studies and the interventions they describe are considered with regard to their content, quality, and results—we conclude that it does not support the use of cognitively focused instruction at this time. Implications for future research are discussed.

• Publisher: SAGE Publications,Council for Exceptional Children,Sage Publications Ltd. (UK),SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subject: Academic Achievement / Analysis / At Risk Students / Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder / Behavior / Beliefs / Boder Test of Reading Spelling Patterns / Burt Word Reading Test / Case Studies / Coding / Cognition / Cognitive impairment / Cognitive Processes / Cognitive Psychology / Diagnostic Teaching / Direct Instruction / Durrell Analysis of Reading Difficulty / Dyslexia / Education / Effect Size / Elementary Secondary Education / Error Correction / Evidence / Gray Oral Reading Test / Hypotheses / Hypothesis testing / Instructional Effectiveness / Intervention / Learning / Learning Disabilities / Learning Strategies / Low Achievement / Memory / Metacognition / Methods / Motor Reactions / Periodicals / Reading Tests / Research Reports / Researchers / Response to Intervention / Short Term Memory / Skills / Social Studies / Special Education / Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test / Student Improvement / Students / Studies / Teaching / Teaching Methods / Visual Stimuli / Wechsler Individual Achievement Test / Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children / Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (Revised) / Wide Range Achievement Test / Woodcock Reading Mastery Test / Writing Instruction