Mnemonic Social Studies Instruction: Classroom Applications

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Abstract
Seventeen mildly handicapped elementary grade students from three special education classes were taught information relevant to two chapters from a social studies textbook. All students received mnemonic instruction for one chapter, and more traditional, textbook-based instruction for the other chapter. Chapter order and experimental condition were counterbalanced to control for possible influences from order of presentation or chapter difficulty. Each chapter was taught daily over a period of 1 week, in each of the three classrooms. Chapter tests were given at the end of the week (immediate), and 1 week later (delayed). Analysis of the results revealed that under mnemonic instruction conditions, students performed significantly (and substantially) higher on both immediate and delayed chapter tests than under traditional instruction conditions. Implications for mnemonic instruction of mildly handicapped students are discussed.