Often

times, students who struggle with learning new material will be able to

better obtain information through the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies.
Due to this, focusing on cognitive/metacognitive strategies is crucial when working
with struggling learners. Specifically, using cognitive/metacognitive to enhance
ones plan of gaining knowledge can be extremely effective, as it will lead to
students learning AND thinking about their learning as a routine. Students will
know their strengths and weaknesses, which can be built on in the classroom. In
addition, using cognitive/metacognitive strategies with students of exceptional
learning needs give students more independence and responsibility for their own
learning which is an especially important aspect when working with adolescent
learners nearing transition (either transition into high-school or post-secondary
transition). Specifically in reading, writing, and math, teaching
cognitive/metacognitive strategies in the classroom can truly impact students
learning positively.
While all cognitive strategies are crucial to adolescent learning, reading
cognitive strategies are extraordinarily important. While math and writing
strategies are important as well, neither of these subjects can be fully
comprehended without reading comprehension. Due to this, it is imperative for
teachers to take an early stance on students who seem to be falling behind in
reading identification and comprehension. One of the best ways to enhance reading
skills in adolescents who are struggling is to use the Question-Answer Relationship
strategy (QAR).

QAR is a strategy to use with students after they have finished reading a
passage or story to help enhance comprehension. According to WETA (2015), the
QAR strategy teaches students how to decipher what types of questions they are
being asked and where to find the answers to them. In the QAR questions, four
different categories exist: Right There Questions, Think and Search Questions,
Author and You Questions, and On My Own Questions. Right There Questions are
extremely straightforward, as they are literal questions with answers found directly
in the text. Think and Search questions require a little more thinking, as they are
questions based on information provided in multiple areas of the text. Author and
You questions are questions that students are required to apply their own
experiences to what is said in the text. Lastly, On My Own questions are questions
that are on the subject of the text, but require students to use background
knowledge to answer rather than reading the text (WETA, 2015).
The QAR strategy really focuses on helping teachers help students. The
intended end result of using QAR is that all students will achieve higher levels of
literacy, while also bridging the literacy gap for learners who may be falling behind
their peers (Raphael & Au, 2005). According to Raphael and Au (2005), the main
purpose of QAR is to provide a framework that offers teachers a straightforward
approach for reading comprehension instruction with the potential of eventually
closing the literacy achievement gap (p. 208). As a starting point, there are multiple
ways in which QAR bridges the gap for learners with deficits.
QAR focuses on organizing questioning activities to increase comprehension
across multiple grade levels and subjects in regard to helping students engage in a

higher level thinking through literacy instruction. This also provides students with
necessary skills for high-stakes testing (Raphael & Au, 2005). Using Right There
questions, students are encouraged to first scan the text to locate crucial
information. Following this step, students should take notes on the text and use
context clues to clarify definitions. With Think and Search questions, students
should first identify important information, and then summarize the information to
come up with potential answers. They can follow by using the physical organization
of the text to properly come up with an answer. With Author and Me questions,
students are taught to first predict in the text, then visualize, then begin to make
inferences. The last step in Author and Me questions is to make text-to-self
connections. The most challenging question type, the On My Own question, adds to
the Author and Me questions by adding text-to-text connections and additional
inferences (Raphael & Au, 2005).
Encouraging students to understand the reading cycle is another important
process toward achieving reading comprehension using QAR. To understand the
reading cycle using this strategy, students will think about questions directly related
to the text, such as who is the main character? (Right There questions), what is
the problem and how is it resolved? (Think and Search questions), what might this
story be about, based on the title or cover (Author and Me Questions), and what do
I already know that can connect me to the text? (On My Own questions) (Raphael &
Au, 2005).
The most effective way to utilize these strategies of questioning is through
teacher modeling. Teachers should come up with predetermined questions from

each category, read a passage aloud, ask questions, model thinking about which
category each question fits into, and model showing the students where to find each
answer/thinking process behind finding the answer. After modeling these skills,
students should be able to begin attaining basic reading and comprehension skills
(WETA, 2015).
Research exists to prove that QAR works for adolescent learners with
comprehension and general reading deficits. According to Raphael and Au (2005),
to demonstrate high levels of literacy when reading nonfiction, students will need
to draw on their knowledge of text organization and be able to identify important
details in texts, graphs, photos and other materials (p. 207). QAR enhances this
process by encouraging students to be able to identify these details. In addition,
Raphael and Au attest that two decades ago, research showed that QAR could
reliably improve students comprehension (p. 208). It is also important to note that
QAR has been proven effective while adjusted for multiple grade levels and content
areas. The progression of difficulty provided by the questioning categories has
proven effective across multiple domains (Raphael & Au, 2005).
Overall, QAR is an incredibly effective reading cognitive strategy to utilize
with adolescent learners. The steps detailed within the strategy allow learners to
separate their reading comprehension into categories and be able to answer
questions from each category. This has been effective with learners of all ages, in
multiple discipline areas.
As important as reading cognitive strategies are, writing cognitive strategies
are also crucial to the success of individuals communication skills. POW + TREE is

one strategy that works to help students develop writing skills. While this strategy is
primarily used for individuals with deficits in writing, it has been an effective
strategy for all individuals. Having most research based on helping individuals with
learning disabilities, Mason and Shriner (2008) focus on how POW + TREEs usage
can support children with emotional and behavioral needs.

The POW + TREE strategy has a variety of purposes to help students with

writing development. According to Mason and Shriner (2008), POW + TREE helps
students by teaching them to develop their opinions and thoughts into manageable
components prior to and during the writing process (p. 74). The key word in this is
components. This strategy has been proven an effective strategy to help students
break their writing down into parts. In particular, it helps students organize notes
and write persuasive papers based on this organization. In addition, this strategy
encourages students to add to their essays (rather than writing simplistic essays)
and to support the details they include in their writing with explanations (Mason &
Shriner, 2008).

POW + TREE works to bridge the gap for learners with skill deficits by

providing students with the opportunity to structure a detailed plan prior to

beginning the writing process. This strategy also reminds students to evaluate their
performance throughout the process (Mason & Shriner, 2008). The first step in POW
+ TREE is the POW step: pick an idea, organize notes, write and say more. This
refers to the steps in the process of which students are forming and stating an
opinion, creating a graphic organizer to organize this opinion, and writing an essay
using the information that has been organized (IRIS, 2014). The writing process is

where TREE is utilized. The most traditional way to use the TREE method is to:
come up with a topic sentence, come up with your reasons, explain your reasons,
and create an ending. The topic sentence stage encourages students to reflect on
their own beliefs and make their beliefs into one sentence. The reasons stage allows
students to reflect on WHY they believe what they do (in three or more reasons,
thus creating three main ideas). After coming up with three main reasons, students
will explain their reasons providing explanations (this is the meat of the
paragraphs). The last step is the ending, which encourages students to wrap up their
beliefs included in the essay or paper (Mason & Shriner, 2008). When POW and
TREE are combined, students have their writing broken down into sensible sections.
This allows them to reflect on their own thinking, as well as creating a piece
detailing effective writing skills. Teachers are encouraged to model this process
prior to teaching students the step-by-step process.
As a writing strategy, POW + TREE has been found effective when used with
elementary students and secondary students. According to Mason and Shriner
(2008), using POW + TREE has been shown to improve students essay length,
elements, and quality (p. 86). In a study conducted with students diagnosed with
emotional/behavioral disorders, five out of six students (between ages of 10 and
13) showed improvement in writing persuasive essays (Mason & Shriner, 2008).
Researchers determined improvement by examining the cohesiveness of parts of
the essay, quality of writing, amount of words written, and usage of transition
words.

Overall, students generally perform better on tasks when they are given a
graphic organizer to use. The POW + TREE writing strategy expands on the concept,
by giving students a step-by-step process to follow. Helping students of all ages and
abilities, POW + TREE is an effective strategy that has been proven to help students
enhance their writing skills, particularly in persuasive writing.
While reading and writing are necessary for the mastery of most subject
areas, math is very applicable to every day life. Additionally, math is a subject in
which students tend to struggle most in. Due to this, cognitive strategies in math are
extremely important to the success of individuals with learning difficulties.
Particularly, word problems in math seem to be of a difficult nature for students
with learning disabilities. Solve It! is a cognitive strategy utilized in math,
specifically to help individuals who have difficulties solving word problems. This
strategy proves to be especially effective for students with learning disabilities in
math but can be used in the general education setting as well.
According to Montague, Warger and Morgan (2000), teachers generally teach
solving word problems in a problematic way. The way this process is generally
taught includes steps of 1) reading the problem, 2) deciding what to do, 3) solving it,
and 4) checking work. The main purpose of Solve It! is to add to this original
process, by providing extra instructional assistance for teaching students how to
decide what to do (Montague et al., 2000, p. 111). Solve It! sets out to teach
students to first UNDERSTAND the problem, then ANALYZE the information prior
to developing a LOGICAL plan and evaluating the solution.

When teachers encourage the use of Solve It! to solve word problems in

math, they do so in a step-by-step process with the expectation that students will
learn to read the problem for understanding. First, students are taught to read the
problem for understanding. Then, students are encouraged to paraphrase by putting
the problem into their own words, followed by visualizing the problem by drawing a
picture or making a mental image to represent the problem. The final steps include
setting up a plan for solving the problem, estimating the answer, and computing the
answer. Finally, students will verify the solution (Montague et al., 2000). This
process not only helps students engage in an effective step-by-step process, but also
teaches students the importance of self-regulation strategies by checking their work
throughout each step. This process is proven to be student-centered, process
oriented, and relevant to instruction.

Solve It! has been tested specifically in three studies with students with

learning disabilities. Research from these studies show that the paraphrasing step of
this strategy is especially important to help struggling learners, as these students
often have difficulty representing and understanding problems. In addition, these
students benefit from using visualization and developing hypotheses, both of which
Solve It! promotes (Montague et al., 2000). In one of the studies mentioned, the
progress of twelve students was measured, using Solve It! to take math assessments.
Six of these students were grades six through eight, while six were high school
students. In this study, each of the students increased their scores substantially,
proving the effectiveness of Solve It! as a cognitive strategy in math (Montague et al.,
2000).

Overall, the importance of using cognitive strategies in math should not be

diminished. Math is everywhere, and many students will not master necessary skills
without being taught proper strategies. Solve It! is one of these strategies, as it
maintains the importance of solving word problems in math among struggling
learners.
There are many clear benefits of using cognitive/metacognitive strategies for
struggling adolescent learners in reading, writing, and math. In addition to helping
students take responsibility for their own knowledge, it also allows students to see
their areas of strength and weaknesses. Overall, using cognitive/metacognitive
strategies provides routine for students with learning difficulties, which allows for a
more practiced, efficient way to learn.

References
IRIS (2014). Improving writing performance: A strategy for writing persuasive

essays. Retrieved June 26, 2015, from http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu

Mason, L. H., & Shriner, J. G. (2008). Self-regulated strategy development

instruction for writing an opinion essay: Effects for six students with

emotional/behavior disorders. Reading And Writing: An Interdisciplinary

Journal, 21(1-2), 71-93.

Montague, M., Warger, C., & Morgan, T. H. (2000). Solve It!: Strategy instruction to

improve mathematical problem solving. Learning Disabilities Research &

Practice (Lawrence Erlbaum), 15(2), 110-116

Raphael, T. E., & Au, K. H. (2005). QAR: Enhancing comprehension and test taking
across grades and content areas. Reading Teacher, 59(3), 206-221.
WETA. (2015). Question-answer relationship. Retrieved June 25, 2015, from
http://www.adlit.org/strategies/19802/