Tells a story about a five-year-old boy and discovers through the telling how to be a better teacher. (MG)

Argues against the use of rewards for students. Discusses their origin in Skinner's behaviorism and their application in behavior modification in the classroom. Describes the problems with using rewards, as noted by Alfie Kohn and others, including the erosion of intrinsic motivation and the distortion of the focus of learning. Presents…

This article presents three case studies of elementary students with learning disabilities whose behavior interfered with the quantity and quality of their classroom instruction. In each case, interventions involved teaching and reinforcing specific replacement behaviors that were identified through functional behavioral assessment. (Contains…

Praise is better than punishment as a motivator for children, but both are manipulative and often backfire. Real encouragement comes in the form of honest, caring concern without strings attached. The paper presents examples of how to encourage children successfully. (SM)

The purposes of this study were to examine the variables related to the special education students' stereotyped behavior in Taiwan, to understand types and functions of these students' stereotyped behavior, and to investigate the impact of such stereotypy on teaching in special educational classrooms. Questionnaires were sent to 308 classroom…

Experiences in using positive reinforcement while teaching on an Indian reservation are presented for teachers and administrators. Several "positive reinforcers," intended to prevent potential discipline problems from occurring, are described, including student involvement in deciding on classroom rules, election of classroom officers, class…

Data were collected on rate per minute of administering token reinforcement for one male and six female teachers enrolled in a behavior modification course. Comparison of reinforcement rates for observer-present versus absent indicated significantly higher rates of token delivery in the observer-present condition. Implications of this fact are…

This study examined the effects of high, mixed, and low rates of specified sequenced teacher behaviors (specific observation followed by reinforcement) engaged in by elementary school teachers on the academic learning time-physical education (ALT-PE) of students. The high rate was defined as teacher engagement in five per minute or more episodes…

Evaluated was the effectiveness of a self control program as opposed to a traditional social reinforcement program on the behavior of two groups of 18 hyperactive boys (7-12 years old). Ss in the self control group were exposed to a tutor who modeled self controlling speech and self reinforcement on a task requiring focused concentration. Ss in…

With contingency reinforcement, students with externally imposed or self-determined academic standards did comparable work. When contingent reinforcement was dropped in an extinction phase, external imposition subjects tended to outperform self-determination subjects. Experiment serves to demonstrate the utility of self-management as an…

Activities for reinforcement of whole number operations are provided through games that present strategic situations for children to use their computation skills. (JP)

The present study is a replication of a Lahey and Drabman study (1974) which investigated the effects of contingent versus noncontingent reinforcement on the learning of sight words. The subjects in this study were 14 Kamehameha Early Education Program (KEEP) students who composed the lowest reading group in a combined first-second grade…

The literature on elementary school classroom management is reviewed. Topics include student characteristics and individual differences, preparing the classroom as a learning environment, organizing instruction and support activities to maximize student engagement in productive tasks, developing workable housekeeping procedures and conduct rules,…

The effects of extrinsic reward on students' intrinsic interest was investigated using a single-subject design in a behavior disorders classroom. Baseline measures of the interest level of five children (ages 9-11 years) were collected for academic and non-academic tasks. Assessment was then made of each subject's response hierarchy or level of…

This study investigated the effects of delay of reinforcement on the classroom academic behaviors (rate of increase and accuracy of mathematical problem completion) by elementary students. A total of 11 fourth graders with a history of low achievement in arithmetic were divided into two groups and given timed arithmetic tests daily. Three…