Retrospective reports gathered from developmental education students as part of a learning assessment revealed the use of several strategies for writing a summary based on a text. Participants were selected for the study based on the richness and variety of their verbal descriptions of task performance in structured, individualized interviews. Although students were not always able to articulate the nature of a summary, they all reported appropriate strategies. However, despite reporting useful strategies, students' scores on the summary task were low. Based on the findings, it is suggested that developmental instructors may find it helpful to gather retrospective reports at the beginning of a course in order to sample and capitalize on strategy knowledge among students in a classroom as the basis of instructional planning.