Learning disabled students from four classrooms were taught four chapters of U.S. history by their regularly assigned special education teachers over an 8-week period. Individual chapters were taught using either mnemonic instruction or more traditional, textbookbased instruction in a counterbalanced order, so that each classroom had a different configuration of treatment order. Students were given a chapter test at the end of each chapter, as well as a cumulative recall test at the end of the 8-week instructional period. Results indicated that students learned substantially more content when instructed mnemonically, on individual chapter tests as well as on the cumulative recall test. Furthermore, students reported favorable attitudes toward the mnemonic materials and generally attributed their relatively higher levels of performance to those materials. Teachers rated the mnemonic materials as significantly more appropriate than traditional textbook-based materials for content area instruction of learning disabled students.
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