Chapter 5 Spotlight Sunshine on Positive

Behaviour Growth: Importance of Teacher

Attention, Encouragement and Praise
Children who need love the most ask for it in the most unloving ways; the
same can be said of children in need of positive attention, coaching,
praise, and encouragement.
One of the most important factors to help students become motivated
and successful learners, is the quality of the teachers attention.
Teachers need consistent and meaningful encouragement to build selfconfidence and contributes to trusting and supportive relationships.
It is important that the praise be genuine and matched to each childs
individual efforts. With doses of positive attention from their teacher
on a regular basis, children will feel secure enough in their relationship
with their teacher to avoid jealousy when others receive praise. They will
learn to celebrate each others successes in meeting their own personal
goals.
It is important for children to eventually learn to self-reflectand selfevaluate. Children who are left to do their own self-evaluation of their
work will likely say it is worthless. Teachers therefore need to supply
extra amounts of positive and consistent external coaching, praise and
scaffolding that the child has not experienced in the crucial early years.
This is also known as environmental scaffolding.
Brophy 1981 states that children who receive praise typically feel selfconfident in their ability to learn and to manage failures and grow up to
need less praise in the long run because they have developed more
confidence in their own unique abilities and ability to self-evaluate and
work out problems. Teachers should make sure they have at least four
positives for every criticism or corrective statement.
It is important for children to learn that it is okay to make mistakes. If
they feel that positive attention will be withdrawn if they make a mistake,
then they will be unwilling to take the risk in the first place. Skillful and
thoughtful recognition of unique aspects of childrens work in front of

peers can encourage students to value differences and discourage

comparison.
Teachers need to develop skills that prompt them to notice the positive
behaviours in difficult children and to catch them being good. Giving
extra attention to the problem child in the form of labelled praise,
encouragement, and incentives for improvements will in the long run be
beneficial for all the students in the classroom because these labelled
descriptions of the expected academic and social behaviours act as a
reminder for everyone. It is even more important that we set up
classroom inteventions that adjust for these individual differences in
relationship abilities and family environments.
Make praise specific. Give praises that are labelled and behaviourspecific as it provides a stronger motivator of future behaviour. Show
enthusiasm when giving praise. It is important to praise a childs efforts,
improvement and willingness to try something that is not easy for them.
Place the emphasis on the childs persistent effort, feelings of success
and progress rather than the teachers evaluation.
Focussing on the process of learning, rather than the product strengthens
self-esteem because it helps students remain invested in their work and
their learning process instead of measuring themselves by the outcome of
their efforts.
Teachers need to praise the non-demanding shy student who is normally
cooperative. Such children are sometimes invisible in the classroom and
need to be noticed for their kindness, generosity, helpful participation
and for working hard to complete an assignment.

Proximity Praise
Focussing on the students who are attending to the task and completing
their work rather than the children who are disengaged and daydreaming.
Non-contingent praise such as a child doing nothing to earn the approval
helps to build a climate of unconditional positive regard of the teacher
for the students.

Giving children positive recognition in the form of praise and

encouragement has another value as well. We want children to learn to
praise others. It is very reinforcing for children to be identified by their
peers as behaving well. For some children, this form of social reward is
even more reinforcing than a teachers attention.
Using non-verbal signals of encouragement are very helpful so teachers
can give students recognition without disrupting the entire class.
Children who are first attempting a new behaviour need to be reinforced
for each small step towards the goal. If required to wait for
reinforcement until they have mastered the new behaviour, they will have
to wait too long and may give up altogether. Praising a child at every step
along the way reinforces the child for her efforts and learning.
One of the ways to increase teachers use of positive recognition is to
work the room looking for positive behaviours that is while the students
are working independently, a teacher circulates throughout the rom and
responds with attention and praise whenever she sees the desired
behaviour occurring.
Shine a praise light on the positive behaviour as often as possible. The
impact of praise hinges on the quality of the teacher-student relationship
because if a supportive relationship is not in place, praise will not be
reinforcing.
It is necessary to both water the relationship as well as to provide
sunshine to encourage student growth.