Effective Intervention for Students with Learning Difficulties in the Middle School Grades: A QuickSmart Approach

The percentage of students identified with learning difficulties (LD) continues to increase. Currently, about 7% of the school-age population in North America is considered to have some form of learning disability (Gersten, Fuchs, Williams & Baker, 2001). In Australia and New Zealand, where the definition of LD is broader and includes students with various learning difficulties, at least 20% of school students are considered to have problems in academic areas (Westwood & Graham, 2000). Definitions of learning disabilities and learning difficulties vary and controversies over identification procedures persist, particularly the notion of a discrepancy between individuals' potential and their actual performance, (e.g., Fuchs & Fuchs, 1998). In general, students with learning difficulties or disabilities are considered to have significant and pervasive problems acquiring and using some combination of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical skills due to underlying difficulties involving their use of language and manipulation of abstract concepts (e.g Swanson & Hoskyn, 1998). In this paper the abbreviation, LD, will refer to learning difficulties and the term learning disability will be used only when that term is found in the cited source. The first section of our paper provides a brief overview of research on (a) learning difficulties in the middle school years, (b) effective instruction and interventions for students with LD, (c) key issues in learning difficulties in reading and numeracy, and concludes with (e) an overview of the role of working memory and automaticity in learning. In the second section, we report on an innovative theoretically-based research initiative, QuickSmart, which draws from these research sources and is currently in its third phase of implementation.