Stages+of+Learning

**Acquisition Stage**: The learner performance ranges from 0 percent accuracy to 90 to 100 percent range of accuracy. During this stage the instructional goal focuses on helping the student perform the skill accurately.

**Proficiency Stage**: The learner attempts to learn the skill at an almost automatic level. The aim is for the student to perform the task both accurately and quickly. The tactics differ from those used at the acquisition stage. Tactics at this level focus on increasing perfomance speed.

**Maintenance Stage**: After high levels of learning have ocurred at the proficiency stage, the student enters the maintence stage. The goal of instruction here is to maintain the high level of perfomance. Idol(1993) notes that students at this stage are expected to retain both accuracy and fluency with the skill once direct instruction or reinforcement has been withdrawn. Students with learning problems frequently encounter much difficulty at this stage because it requires retention of the skill. Tactics at this stae concentrate on maintaining high levels of learning.

**Generalization Stage**: The learning performs the skill in differnt times and situations. Theis means that the student demonstrats proficiency in the skill in different settings and with different people. Generalization is an area of great difficulty for many students with learning problems and does not automatically occur- it must be systematically taught.

**Adaption Stage**: The learner applies a previously learned skill in a new area of application without direct instruction or guidance. Simply, this skill may be referred to as problem solving. Problem solving occurs when a student who has mastered multiplication facts "discovers" that division is the reverse of multiplication and proceeds to answer division facts accurately and independently. Smith(1981) maintains that students with learning problems are rarely taught adaption-level skills, despite their importance.

Taken From: Teaching Students With Learning Problems, Eighth Edition by: Cecil Mercer, Ann Mercer, and Paige Pullen