Praise and Encouragement

What’s Inside:

Why praise and encouragement are important.

Components of praise and encouragement.

Examples of praise and encouragement.

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Praise is a powerful motivator that helps encourage children to stick with difficult
tasks, behave appropriately, master new skills, and feel good about themselves. It enhances positive student-teacher relations (think about how it feels when your
boss or colleague comments positively on something you’ve done well). Praise is also most effective in the context of a good student-teacher relationship. Most importantly, praise is free and easy, so it can be provided liberally and quickly

Effectiveness of Praise and Encouragement:

Praise and encouragement are powerful motivators that help encourage children to stick with difficult tasks, behave appropriately, master new skills, and feel good about themselves. Praise is a form of positive reinforcement. When a student engages in a positive behavior, a specific labeled praise statement can be made (e.g., “Nice job lining up quietly,” or “I see how patiently you are waiting to be called upon”). Encouragement can give a student a sense of support and confidence by showing you believe in them; for example, “I believe your science fair project will turn out great with the amount of effort you have been putting into the project.” These will increase the chance that the student will make this positive choice again in the future and decrease the chance that they will choose a competing negative behavior.

Praise and encouragement enhance positive student-teacher relations and is most meaningful when you have a good relationship with the student (i.e., the student values your praise). As a result, improving your relationship with the student can lead to your praise and encouragement becoming very powerful.

Elements of Effective Praise & Encouragement:

• Specificity
  • Tell the child exactly what they did well (“I noticed that you are sitting and waiting so patiently”)
• Timing
  • Praise is most effective when it occurs immediately ( < 5 seconds) after behavior
  • In the beginning, praise should be provided every time you see the behavior.
  • As the student improves, you can provide praise more intermittently.
    • For example, when learning to read, you first praise a child for sounding out letters. As they improve, you priase for remembering words, or sounding out more difficult/longer words.
• Tone
  • Neutral and enthusiastic tones can be very powerful tools for praise.
  • Praise and encouragement is most meaningful when it is sincere and positive.
  • Making eye contact and smiling can add greater effect to praise.
  • Pointing out the behavior to the whole class can have an additional benefit by encouraging other students to follow along with the appropriate or requested behavior.
    • For example, “I notice that Chantel is lining up, and Derek is too. Great listening, Chantel and Derek!”
• Effort
  • Praise effort and not just the finished product; encourage small steps toward the bigger goal
    • For example, instead of waiting for the child to finish the worksheet, praise them for getting started on the assignment and encourage them to keep up the good work.
• The Golden Ratio (4:1)
  • Strive to give 4 praises for every 1 correction of negative behavior.
  • Praise children who exhibit challenging behaviors more often than typically developing children.
  • Catch the child being good; it is eaiser to notice misbehavior than to notice positive behavior. To achieve the 4:1 ratio, you will need to “catch the child being good”.
    • For example, you could praise a student for focusing on a lesson and paying attention, as opposed to redirecting them every time they are off-task.
    • It takes the same amount of time or less to praise positive behavior than it does to correct negative behavior, and praising does so in a positive way.
• Selectivity
  • Praise and encrouage behaviors that you would like the student to demonstrate more often. These can be aligned with your general classroom expectations or more specific to the individual student.
  • It is believed that praising and encouraging a student’s enduring traits may be a way to highlight a student’s strengths to classmates and enhance peer relationships in the classroom.
    • For example, “You are a very neat and organized writer!”
• Simplicity
  • Sometimes we undermine praise by following it with criticism or instruction.
    • For example, a teacher might say, “I’m happy you finished your assignment, but you got these three questions wrong” or “Great job remembering to raise your hand in math, but from now on, how about doing it in reading, too?”
  • Praise should be clear and simple with no requests for future behaviors or reminders of past failures.
• Motivation
  • Some teachers are concerned that praise will decrease children’s motivation, or that children will begin to only work for external rewards.
  • In contrast, research shows that when children are regularly praised for attempting or completing difficult tasks, they develop a sense of internal pride and accomplishment.
    • These children are often more motivated to perform well – both to continue the sense of accomplishment as well as to gain more positive teacher attrition.

Examples of Effective Praise and Encouragement:

• Thank you for following directions.
• I appreciate that you sat down quietly.
• I noticed that you gave Josie a pencil.
• I can tell that you care about being a hard worker in Math.
• I really like how hard you are working on your art project.
• You did a good job lining up.
• You are always a kind friend to everyone.
• You will do a great job at music.
• I like how you’re being so patient with trying to figure out all the different ways to solve that problem.
• Excellent how you’re staying calm, trying to solve a difficult problem.
• You planned that really well and used all your time effectively today.
• I noticed that you figured that out on your own.
• Great job staying in your seat.
• I notice that Sarah raised her hand, and Matthew raised his hand…
• Thank you for closing your book.

Highlighting positive personal qualities of children that are not associated with behavioral expectations or academics can help break down negative reputations that children may have with peers.

Examples such as:

– kindness/thoughtfulness
– artistic, sport, or musical abilities
– creativity, innovation
– bravery/courage

Creative Ideas:

• Use hand gestures such as a “thumbs up.”
• Use Brag-Tags, Shout-Outs or recognition boards that acknowledge childrens’ successes.
• Create a handful of “class cheers” and when a student or a group deserves praise or encouragement, let them choose the class cheer to receive from you or the entire class.

Putting Praise to Use:

A teacher in your grade, Ms. Smith, mentions that she is having difficulty with a particular student in her class. Ms. Smith reports that because this student is often noncompliant and out of his seat, she finds it difficult to find behaviors to praise.
– What advice would you give to Ms. Smith?

Ms. Smith says, “My student should know how to behave. I don’t need to praise everyday things like taking out his pencil or lining up when I ask.”
– How would you respond?

Ms. Smith now says, “I don’t want to spoil this student by praising him for every behavior! Pretty soon, he’ll only work if I give him rewards for everything!”
– How would you respond?

External Resources:

https://www.apa.org/education-career/k12/using-praise

https://www.understood.org/articles/en/the-power-of-effective-praise-a-guide-for-teachers

https://www.thoughtco.com/effective-praise-8161

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