The emphasis in school evolves from skill development in elementary grades to content development in the upper grades and secondary schools. Students progressively become more independent thinkers and learners. Strategy instruction provides students with skills used to recognize, organize, remember, and use knowledge.

Many strategies have been developed to assist students deal with text-based knowledge, such as, SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review [Robinson, 1961]). Other strategies help organize and clarify thinking, remembering, and writing, such as mnemonics and semantic mapping. Still other strategies involve interactional aspects of learning, such as reciprocal teaching and brainstorming.

Strategies do not provide the content of instruction. Strategies provide methods for making information understandable and memorable. Strategies can be used in combination, such as, brainstorming followed by SQ3R.

Strategic Teaching and Learning by the California Department of Education (2000) provides descriptions for 30 learning strategies designed to “promote content literacy in grades 4 through 12”. Many of the strategies are oriented toward understanding text material, however, most are adaptable to writing or listening. For instance, Graphic Outlining (p. 40-42) and Guided Imagery (p. 43-44) can be used in both reading, writing, and thinking (organizing).

Below are other examples of strategies that are useful in understanding and remembering text material.

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