Research has indicated that students who have been taught strategies for creating their own mnemonics out-perform comparison students in free-study conditions. Unfortunately, however, when students generate their own strategies, instruction may proceed at a much slower rate and students' performances may be lower than when teachers supply the strategies (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1992). During a given unit of instruction, teachers should consider whether learning a strategy or learning the content is the priority.

Moreover, initial development of many of these strategis can be difficult for anyone. Try developing several strategies yourself before teaching your students with disabilities. If you experience difficulties, imagine that the task will be much more difficult for your students. Each year, develop a few strategies to accompnay the content areas that you teach most frequently. Over time you will have a great number of effective strategies thatyou can teach your students. This does not mean thatyou should not teach your students to develop strategies independently. You can still encourage active strategy development on the part of your students, but if students have difficulties generating strategies, you can supply the ones developed by you or your co-teachers. Perhaps you will find that a combination of teacher-created and studenet-generated mnemonic strategies is the best way to enhance recqall and still promote indepenent stragtegy use.