Intervention in School and Clinic

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Mnemonic Strategies: Evidence-Based Practice and Practice-Based Evidence

Thomas E. Scruggs, Margo A. Mastropieri, Sheri L. Berkeley and Lisa Marshak
Intervention in School and Clinic 2010 46: 79
DOI: 10.1177/1053451210374985
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Feature Article
Intervention in School and Clinic 46(2) 7986
Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2010
Reprints and permission: http://www. sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1053451210374985
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Mnemonic Strategies: Evidence-Based

Practice and Practice-Based Evidence
Thomas E. Scruggs, Margo A. Mastropieri,
Sheri L. Berkeley, and Lisa Marshak

Abstract
This article presents information on using mnemonic strategies to enhance learning and memory of students with mild
disabilities. Different types of mnemonic strategies are described, including the keyword method, the pegword method, and
letter strategies. Following this, a number of teachers describe their own applications of mnemonic strategies with students
with learning disabilities, mild mental retardation, and emotional/behavioral disabilities. Content areas include elementary
life science, secondary social studies and anatomy, elementary social studies, elementary reading vocabulary, and secondary
SAT vocabulary. Finally, a middle school social studies teacher describes lessons learned from her extended experience with
mnemonic strategies. A discussion of the theoretical foundations and empirical research support of mnemonic strategies
also is provided.
Keywords
mnemonic strategies, evidence-based practice, content area learning
Mnemosyne, the personification of memory, was a titaness,
the mother with Zeus of the Muses. The ancient Greeks
believed they derived their powers of public speaking from
Mnemonsyne and her special relation with the Muses (Hesiod, 1914; Yates, 1966). A mnemonic, then, is any procedure
or operation designed to improve ones memory. The particular mnemonic strategies described in this article are those
that involve a specific reconstruction of target content
intended to tie new information more closely to the learners
existing knowledge base and, therefore, facilitate retrieval
(Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1990, pp. 271272). There are several

different types of these reconstructive or transformational

mnemonic strategies, and they have been employed over
the years to address the considerable memory problems often
exhibited by students with disabilities (Scruggs & Mastropieri, in press). This article describes the procedures and

Corresponding Author:
Thomas E. Scruggs, MSN 1D5, College of Education and Human
Development, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030
(e-mail: tscruggs@gmu.edu).

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Intervention in School and Clinic 46(2)

applications of mnemonic strategy instruction along with a

description of applications from a teacher point of view.

Practice Description
In addition to a number of general procedures intended to
improve memory (e.g., minimize interference, increase practice)
(Mastropieri & Scruggs, 2009, chap. 10), there are specific
mnemonic strategies that require some transformation or
reconstruction of target content to link it to more meaningful,
familiar proxies, which are associated with the most positive
outcomes. These include the keyword method, the pegword
method, and letter strategies.

The Keyword Method

The keyword in the keyword method is a concrete, acoustically similar proxy for unfamiliar information (e.g., vocabulary words, terminology, people, places) that can then be
associated with the to-be-remembered information. For
example, to remember that bunnia is a Hindi word for a
merchant or trader, a keyword is first constructed for bunnia.
In this case, a good keyword would be bunny, because it
sounds like the first part of bunnia and is easily pictured.
Learners then can be shown (or asked to imagine) a picture
that portrays the keyword and associated information interacting, for example, in a picture of a merchant or trader
(meaning for bunnia) selling or trading bunnies (keyword
for bunnia). When asked for the meaning of bunnia, then,
learners first think of the keyword, bunny, think of the picture
with the bunnies in it, remember what else was in the picture
(i.e., a merchant or trader), and retrieve the answer: merchant
or trader (McLoone, Scruggs, Mastropieri, & Zucker, 1986).
For another example, consider the scientific name oxalis,
which refers to a genus of clover-like plants. A good keyword
for oxalis could be ox, and a picture could be shown of an
ox eating clover-like plants. When asked the meaning of
oxalis, then, learners first think of the keyword, ox, think of
the picture with the ox in it, remember what else was in the
picture, and retrieve the answer: clover-like plants (Mastropieri,
Scruggs, & Fulk, 1990). The keyword method is very versatile
and has been applied to learning in a variety of areas, including English and foreign-language vocabulary, science, and
social studies (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 2000).
Specific steps for designing and implementing the keyword
method are as follows:
1. Write out the content to be remembered in a list
(e.g., PersonAccomplishment, Vocabulary
wordDefinition).
2. Identify whether the terms, vocabulary words, people, accomplishments, or other to-be-remembered
information is familiar or unfamiliar to the learner.

3. If unfamiliar, develop an acoustically similar, easily

pictured, concrete proxy or keyword for the term
(e.g., ranid = rain). If information is familiar, the
familiar term (e.g., trench) is the keyword.
4. Develop an interactive image or picture of the keyword doing something with the to-be-remembered
information (e.g., frog sitting in the rain, sick soldiers
in the trenches).
5. Practice learning the keyword (for unfamiliar information) and the interactive image or picture.
6. Practice learning the retrieval steps. When asked
the meaning of the word, think of the keyword, think
of what was happening in the picture with the
keyword in it, and retrieve the definition.

The Pegword Method

The pegword in the pegword method is a rhyming proxy for
a number (e.g., one is bun, two is shoe, three is tree) and is
used to remember numbered or ordered information. For
example, to help students remember that a wheelbarrow is
an example of a second-class lever (i.e., fulcrum at one end,
load in the middle, force applied at the other end), a teacher
could show a picture of a wheelbarrow bumping into a shoe
(pegword for two). A teacher might show a picture of a spider
weaving a web on a gate (pegword for eight) to help students
remember that spiders have eight legs.
Pegwords can also be combined with keywords when
unfamiliar terms are associated with numbers. For example,
to help students remember that wolframite has a hardness
level of 4 (on the Mohs scale), show a picture of a wolf
(keyword for wolframite) standing in front of a door (pegword
for four) (Mastropieri, Scruggs, Bakken, & Whedon, 1997).

Letter Strategies
Letter strategies are the most commonly known mnemonic
strategies and include acronyms, in which each letter represents a word, such as HOMES to represent each of the
Great Lakes (i.e., Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior);
and acrostics, using the first letters of words in a sentence
to remember a list or sequence of information, for example,
My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas, to
remember the planets in order (e.g., Mercury, Venus, Earth,
etc.). For another example, the five classes of vertebrates
(i.e., fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds) can be represented by the acronym FARM-B (Scruggs & Mastropieri,
1992). Letter strategies can also be linked to keywords. For
example, to help students remember the Central Powers in
World War I, show a picture of children playing tag in Central
Park (keyword for Central Powers). The letters of TAG
represent Turkey (Ottoman Empire), Austria-Hungary, and
Germany (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1989).

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Scruggs et al.

Reconstructive Elaborations
In addressing the complex requirements of content area learning, it is necessary to combine a number of mnemonic strategies to address different memory needs. Information can be
organized by its familiarity and concreteness, and appropriate
reconstructions created. For example, information that is
already familiar and concrete (e.g., that World War I trench
warfare was unhealthy and many soldiers died from disease)
can be shown by representative, or mimetic, pictures (e.g.,
sick soldiers in trenches). For information that is familiar but
not concrete (e.g., U.S. policy), symbolic pictures can be
provided (e.g., Uncle Sam). For information that is neither
abstract nor concrete, acoustic representations can be provided
via the keyword or pegword methods. Finally, letter strategies
can be employed where lists of information must be remembered, such as the countries in the Central Powers (Scruggs &
Mastropieri, 1989).

Practitioner Narrative
Mnemonic strategies have been validated in a number of
experimental investigations. In addition to these investigations, however, a number of teachers over the years have
implemented these strategies in their own classrooms, with
different ages and types of learners studying different content
areas. Although some teachers have commented on the challenges of developing mnemonic strategies, in all cases, the
teachers recognized the effectiveness of the strategies and
the high degree of enjoyment on the part of the students.

Science Strategies for Students

With Emotional/Behavioral Disabilities
One elementary teacher of students with emotional/behavioral
disabilities, ages 7 to 11, developed mnemonic strategies to
help students learn and remember information for a unit on
life sciences. The teacher reported that she selected information students had difficulty learning and developed her materials using combinations of stick figures, simple line
drawings, and pictures taken from magazines (Mastropieri,
Emerick, & Scruggs, 1988, p. 51). For example, to teach that
herbivores are animals that eat plants, she created a keyword,
herd, and then created a picture of a herd of herbivores eating
plants. She implemented the materials and reported students
learned, and retained, virtually all information taught mnemonically, which contrasted dramatically from the amount
of information students learned with traditional instructional
methods. She commented, The mnemonic method was fun
and rewarding to use . . . the students appeared more motivated to learn and actually appeared to enjoy learning the
science concepts during the mnemonic instruction. She
concluded that although the initial planning and development of mnemonic materials required more thinking time

than the preparation of the traditional materials, . . . it was

worth the time since the students not only enjoyed the
instruction, but also learned more content (Mastropieri
et al., 1988, p. 54).

Science and Social Studies Strategies

for Students With Intellectual Disabilities
A middle school teacher of students with mild intellectual
disabilities adapted materials for science and social students
for her students. She first employed researcher-developed
materials to help her students remember the states and capitals, which they had previously had difficulty learning. For
example, to help students remember that the capital of Maryland is Annapolis, students learned keywords, then viewed
and practiced retrieving information for a picture of two
apples (keyword for Annapolis) getting married (keyword
for Maryland). She also created thinking-sequence cards that
helped students think through the steps of the procedure. She
introduced five new states and capitals per week over a period
of 4 weeks. At the end of this time, she was surprised to report
that students averaged 94% correct on the recall test.
This same teacher also developed mnemonic strategies
to help her students remember anatomy content. She
reported all students were required to learn various body
parts, including the parts of the eye and the ear as part of
their regularly assigned science curriculum. She had indicated previously trying to teach students that content using
a variety of methods, such as pictures of the eye and ear
and practice activities designed to promote learning, but
students experienced difficulty learning the information
with these methods (Mastropieri, Scruggs, Whittaker, &
Bakken, 1994, p. 39).
The teacher stated that she developed materials to accompany the regularly assigned science textbook.
Seven parts of the eye and nine parts of the ear, as
well as their corresponding definitions, were identified
as the target content. . . . One overhead transparency
was developed to teach each part of the eye and ear. . . .
For example, to teach that the pupil was the dark hole
in the iris that lets light into the eye, the keyword
pill for pupil was taught, and students were shown
an illustration of a pill in the place of a pupil embedded within a line drawing of an eye, and the pill looked
like light was going through it. (Mastropieri et al.,
1994, p. 40)
During the first lessons, the teacher presented mnemonic
strategies that she had developed, whereas later in subsequent
sessions, students were prompted to generate their own mnemonic strategies. Overall, students who were instructed
mnemonically recalled 78% of the content, far more than
expected. In both subjects, students learned more, and

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reported enjoying instruction more when mnemonic strategies

were implemented.

Social Studies in an Inclusive Elementary Class

An elementary grade teacher of an inclusive classroom
wished to develop strategies that would help all students, but
especially students with learning disabilities, learn and
remember social studies content. The teacher stated,
I examined our social studies curriculum and selected
any vocabulary or concepts that may have posed a
problem to the children based on our previous units.
I then prioritized items for developing mnemonics
because I was not yet too comfortable with creating
them. I looked at the spelling and the sounds of the
concepts or vocabulary and tried to derive an easy,
familiar word or phrase to be the keyword. From there,
I related the keyword to the definition through a picture.
I found it helpful to have a person in the picture saying
something that directly related to the definition. For
instance, students needed to learn the word charter,
which is royal permission to start a colony. The keyword was chart, and the picture showed a king with a
chart in front of him. The chart told the things needed
to make a good colony. The king was saying, I give
you permission to start a colony. Heres how. . . .
(Mastropieri, Sweda, & Scruggs, 2000, p. 70)
The teacher created mnemonic pictures using stick figures
and line drawings. After the teacher implemented the materials, she gave a unit test. She stated, Students performed
particularly well on the unit test. I was especially satisfied to
note how well the students with special needs performed on
the test and how well all students performed on the items that
had been studied mnemonically (Mastropieri et al., 2000,
p. 71). Typical students scored 83% on traditionally presented
items, compared with 89% on the mnemonically presented
content. Students with learning disabilities, however, scored
37% correct on the traditionally presented content and 75%
on mnemonically presented information. This teacher
concluded,
It seems to me that two critical elements to this instruction are sufficient repetition and the use of practiceapplication activities. Once the mnemonic is introduced
to the students, it must be reviewed several times that
day and each subsequent day. This repetition is
extremely vital for committing the concept to memory. . . . The creation of mnemonics is time consuming
but becomes easier as the process of creating them is
mastered. There is no need for artistic talent, but rather
a need for creativity in linking sound with pictures.
(Mastropieri et al., 2000, pp. 7172)

Reading Vocabulary and

Inclusive Elementary Classes
An elementary grade special education teacher developed
mnemonic strategies for helping students remember vocabulary words for stories they were going to read. The teacher
developed mnemonic materials using computer clip art. Next,
she reported,
I showed . . . the vocabulary cards one at a time, and
also taught the keyword, which I told the students was
a cue word that could help them remember the
vocabulary word and the definition. For example,
I showed students the card for the vocabulary word
jettisoned. I read the word to them, and then read and
pointed out the keyword jet which I then related to
the definition to throw overboard and the picture
(a jet with a package being thrown overboard). I then
practiced the vocabulary word, keyword, and definition
three times with the students. I taped the word cards
to the board as I taught them. (Uberti, Scruggs, &
Mastropieri, 2003, p. 58)
After instruction, a vocabulary posttest revealed that students with learning disabilities scored even higher than typical students, an unusual outcome in that class. When
mnemonics were not used, students with learning disabilities
remembered fewer words than their typical peers.

SAT Vocabulary in High School Classes

A high school special education teacher wished to help her
students with learning disabilities learn vocabulary words
that they might encounter on their upcoming SAT test. The
teacher assigned a keyword for each vocabulary word,
and then chose an interactive illustration from clip art in her
word processing program and the Internet. She also made
transparencies for the overhead projector from each sheet
and then created worksheets for independent student practice. These worksheets included a table with the vocabulary
word, keyword, definition, and illustration. Some of the
information was missing, and the students were required to
complete the blank spaces (Terrill, Scruggs, & Mastropieri,
2004, p. 290).
To evaluate the value of the strategies, the teacher alternated lessons, providing 1 week of mnemonic instruction,
followed by 1 week of traditional instruction, over a period
of 6 weeks. At the end of the period, she found that students
remembered 92% of the mnemonically taught words but only
49% of the traditionally taught words. She also found that
the students greatly preferred mnemonic instruction:
After experiencing the keyword method, some of the
students . . . expressed extreme dislike for the workbook

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Scruggs et al.
method, wanting to use only the former. Overall, the
students preferred the keyword method, not only
because it facilitated the learning of the words but
because they enjoyed being successful. A few of these
students had never attained this level of achievement.
(Terrill et al., 2004, p. 293)

Lessons Learned From an Inclusive

Social Studies Teacher, by Lisa Marshak
During the past 3 years, a social studies middle school
teacher, who teaches in inclusive classes, began to develop
and implement mnemonic strategies for her classes. She
summarizes her conclusions about mnemonics in the following paragraphs.
I have been a general education social studies teacher in
public schools for 17 years. One of the things that I love
about my job is finding innovative ways to engage students.
I want students to enjoy learning history. To me, its more
than just dates and facts! Throughout my career, I have seen
students with special needs achieve less than their general
education peers despite accommodations and modifications.
I wanted to learn more about how to improve outcomes for
these students without watering down the content or singling
students out. One practice that I discovered along the way
that has proven particularly effective with students is keyword
mnemonics. Over the years, I have learned quite a bit about
what to do and what not to do when using mnemonics in my
classroom.
Lesson Learned #1: Using mnemonics in teaching is easy;
developing materials takes time! One year, researchers from a
nearby university conducted a study about the effectiveness
of mnemonics in social studies for seventh graders at my
school. The researchers provided mnemonic materials for
several curriculum units that school year. All of the teachers
on my team were very positive about using mnemonics during the units of the study. They all found mnemonics to be
very easy to use in the classroom; however, many teachers
found development of appropriate keywords and corresponding pictures to be challenging.
Lesson Learned #2: All mnemonics are not created equally!
In my efforts to develop keywords, I found that regardless
of topic, mnemonics for some words tend to be easier to
develop than others. Specifically, one-word nouns (e.g., people, vocabulary words, places, concepts) seem to be the easiest. For example, to help students remember that John D.
Rockefeller controlled the oil business, I created a picture of
oil being poured on a rock (keyword for Rockefeller).
Mnemonics that give multiple examples of one concept also
seem to be manageable. Mnemonics tended to be more difficult to construct for concepts with multiple answers, such
as the results of the Spanish American War. This also includes
cause/effect relationships with more than one effect. Of
course, this type of mnemonic is possible, but generally it

would require the addition of another type of mnemonic,

such as a letter strategy.
Lesson Learned #3: Modeling matters! New tasks in my
classes are always modeled, followed by guided and then
independent practice. Independent practice often entails some
sort of peer tutoring activity, and so I also explicitly teach
students how to peer tutor. Despite this structure, in my initial
attempts to use mnemonic peer tutoring in my classroom,
I quickly noticed that students used the mnemonic study
cards as if they were flash cards. On many occasions the tutor
did not hold the mnemonic card correctly. For this reason,
I began to include a modeling component, which gradually
decreased in duration, at the beginning of each and every
mnemonic peer-tutoring lesson. I also learned that it was
important for me to walk around and monitor tutors to ensure
they were holding the cards correctly and that the tutee students were truly looking at the pictures! This close observation gave me ample opportunity to reteach the strategy when
needed. These additional efforts on my part paid off in later
units where it took significantly less time for students to learn
the targeted concepts.
Lesson Learned #4: Kids think peer tutoring with mnemonics
is fun! Simple observation makes it quite obvious that students
in my classes really enjoy class activities that include the
mnemonic peer tutoring cards. The room simply buzzes with
student engagement. In fact, they even ask for them during
units when I havent planned mnemonics activities. And
better yet, they consistently report that using the mnemonics
strategy helps them to remember content during tests.
Lesson Learned #5: Mnemonics are effective! Recently,
I completed an action research project in my inclusive teamtaught U.S. history classes, which totaled 57 seventh-grade
students. The makeup of my classes was diverse and very
similar to the general population of my school. In addition
to racial/ethnic diversity, a number of students had disabilities
(i.e., learning disabilities, other health impairments, and hearing impairments), or were receiving accommodations under
[Section] 504 plans, and 13 students were English language
learners. Over the course of 3 days, I used the warm-up time
of class to teach students how to peer tutor using mnemonic
cards of 16 important vocabulary words from a unit we had
not yet studied. I then kept track of how many new words
and concepts they could identify by the end of the week.
I found that all students, including those with disabilities and
English language learners, benefited significantly from the
instruction. I knew that mnemonics was a helpful strategy,
but I was surprised when the students average score increased
from 52% to 85% correct in just 3 days!
Lesson Learned #6: Mnemonics are especially effective for
students with disabilities! With the promising results of the
action research project the year before, I decided that I wanted
to look more closely at the learning of students with disabilities in all of the seventh-grade classes in my school.
Therefore, I spent the summer creating mnemonic cards for

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Intervention in School and Clinic 46(2)

three units of study. This time the mnemonic materials were

used over a period of 12 weeks. Students who were taught
using the supplemental mnemonic cards not only improved,
but their improvement was significantly greater than students
who received instruction without the cards. To my surprise,
I also found that the students with disabilities who were
taught the mnemonic strategy performed just as well as students without disabilities who did not receive instruction that
included mnemonics. Specifically, on the posttest items,
students taught mnemonically scored 93.9% (students without
disabilities) and 92.6% (students with disabilities). Students
taught traditionally scored 71.4% (students without disabilities) and 55.4% (students with disabilities; see also Marshak,
Mastropieri, & Scruggs, 2009). If I wasnt already convinced
that the extra time in materials preparation was worthwhile,
I now am! In fact, as department chair, my professional goal
for this school year is to coordinate our social studies team
in the development of mnemonic materials for all units in
the seventh-grade curriculum.

Theoretical Support
Semantic memory deficits have long been observed in individuals with mild special needs, including learning disabilities (e.g., Cooney & Swanson, 1987); mental retardation
(e.g., Kavale & Forness, 1992); and social/emotional conditions, such as anxiety, depression (Gnther, Holtkamp, Jolles,
Herpertz-Dahlmann, & Konrad, 2004), and aggressiveness
(Seguin, Pihl, Harden, Tremblay, & Boulerice, 1995). Semantic
memory deficits have also been linked to problematic
purposive (e.g., strategic) processes (Wertlieb, 1992) and
literacy skills (Cornwall, 1992).
Mnemonic strategies likely are effective at addressing
these deficits because they build upon familiarity or meaningfulness (Underwood & Shultz, 1960) and provide verbal
elaboration (Rohwer, Raines, Eoff, & Wagner, 1977) to
enhance learning (Mastropieri, Scruggs, & Levin, 1985).
These features are theorized to be particularly beneficial to
individuals with mild disabilities because they minimize
relative learning weaknesses (e.g., spontaneous strategy production, verbal fluency), while maximizing relative strengths
(e.g., memory for pictures, memory for semantically or phonetically elaborated information; see Scruggs, Mastropieri, &
Levin, 1987, for a discussion). And in fact, research over the
past three decades has supported the efficacy of mnemonic
instruction.

Research Evidence
Since the early 1980s to the present, researchers have conducted
more than 40 experiments, utilizing more than 2,000 participants with mild disabilities, documenting the efficacy of mnemonic strategy instruction. Mnemonic strategies, including the

keyword method, pegword method, letter strategies, and reconstructive elaborations, have been found to be extremely effective
for students with mild disabilities on the elementary and secondary levels, for a wide range of content, including
1. English (Mastropieri, Scruggs, Levin, Gaffney, &
McLoone, 1985) and foreign language vocabulary
(McLoone et al., 1986),
2. state (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1989b) and U.S. history
(Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1988), and
3. earth and life sciences (King-Sears, Mercer, &
Sindelar, 1992; Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1992).
A number of quantitative research syntheses have summarized the effectiveness of mnemonic instruction. Mastropieri and Scruggs (1989a) summarized the outcomes of 24
experimental investigations of mnemonic instruction with
students with mild disabilities, involving 983 students, and
reported a very large overall mean effect size of 1.62
(SD = 0.79). An effect size this large means that the average
student in a mnemonic condition would have scored at the
94.7th percentile of the students in the comparison conditions
in which mnemonics was not used. Stated another way, the
average proportion of correct items after instruction for all
the comparison conditions was 43.8%, as compared with
75.0% correct for students instructed mnemonically, an overall difference of nearly 2 to 1. A more recent meta-analysis
of 34 experiments on mnemonic strategy instruction for
students with mild disabilities (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 2000)
identified a virtually identical mean effect size of 1.62
(SD = 0.84). Effect sizes were similar across grade levels,
content areas, type of disability of participants, setting, and
authorship. Wolgemuth, Cobb, and Alwell (2008) summarized mnemonic research for students with mild disabilities
at the secondary level and reported a mean overall effect size
of 1.38. Taken together, these effect sizes are among the largest and most consistent of any intervention in special education (Forness, 2001). Mnemonics instruction has also been
identified as a Go for It! practice by the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Division of Learning Disabilities and
Division for Research Current Practice Alerts (Brigham &
Brigham, 2001).
In spite of the positive research support, however, it must
be considered that mnemonic strategies do not address all
school objectives and should not be considered a panacea for
all aspects of school learning. What mnemonics do, however,
they do very well. Whenever students exhibit difficulties
learning and retaining verbal information, mnemonics instruction represents an important component to a teachers arsenal
of instructional strategies. And as represented by the numerous teachers who have applied these strategies in their classrooms, mnemonic strategy instruction remains an important
evidence-based practice for special education teachers.

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Scruggs et al.
Declaration of Conflicting Interest
The author(s) declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the
authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or
authorship of this article.

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About the Authors

Thomas E. Scruggs, PhD, is university professor at George Mason
University. His interests include mnemonic strategies, strategies
for effective inclusion, and research synthesis.
Margo A. Mastropieri, PhD, is university professor and professor
of special education at George Mason University. Her interests
include mnemonic strategies, writing strategies, and strategies for
effective inclusion.
Sheri L. Berkeley, PhD, is assistant professor of special education
at George Mason University. Her interests include learning strategies for literacy development, and response to intervention.
Lisa Marshak, PhD, is chair of the Department of Social Studies,
Fairfax County Public Schools, Fairfax, Virginia. Her interests
include inclusive instruction for secondary social studies.

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