ABSTRACT
Research suggests that one source of the differences between the highest- and lowest-achieving children is the degree to which they become self-regulators of their own learning. High-achieving students engage in a number of helpful strategic skills, including goal setting, planning, self-interrogating, self-monitoring, asking for help, using aids, and using memory strategies. When less cognitively advanced children are given the same task, they approach it with less well-established prerequisite skills. The sequence of steps to be considered in the new task creates “overload,” or at least occupies the student’s full attention. Teachers and more advanced peers sometimes “think for” less self-directed children. While less advanced children may in time master the steps of the task, they are infrequently put in the position of talking about it to others. To help low achievers, teachers should strive to systematically monitor their students’ social and self-discourse in order to infer the children’s level of knowledge, strategies, and motivation.
