A contract and point system were used to decrease the pilfering behavior of an 11-year-old boy. Under the contract system, the boy kept a daily record of his progress and earned points toward a trip to the planetarium. After introduction of the contract the pilfering dropped from at least two times a week to none at all. (LS)

Urges reading teachers to fight the cultural tendency to value conformity above performance, to increase their production of approval signals, and to use these signals to reinforce a variety of behaviors. (RL)

Measures the relative effectiveness of a short-term punishment versus a snort-term positive reinforcement contingency system for reducing the frequency of specific inappropriate behaviors of a group of senior elementary students. Students were directly involved in identifying the different types of discipline so that they might help determine the…

Considerable attention is being directed toward the need for school counselors to work closely with teachers, other school staff, and parents not only to bring about effective change with students, but also to become an integral part of the staff. (Author)

Learning activities involving teaching different techniques that can help a child learn the basic facts are described. (JT)

Eight low-productive sixth grade students were used in this token reinforcement study. Teacher direct reinforcement and liked-peer indirect reinforcement were both found to increase productivity. (CP)

Presents an annotated bibliography for children in kindergarten through grade six. The titles in this bibliography focus not on world problems but more on the child's everyday world, particularly in the home and community. They positively strengthen and reinforce children's own world views and illustrate active roles children can play. (BB)

The article describes a modification of the skill-streaming approach (which features modeling, role playing, feedback, transfer of training, and reinforcement) for elementary students with behavior problems. (CL)

Observation of 97 teachers during group instruction of elementary students with mental retardation, severe multihandicaps, and learning disabilities and/or behavior disorders revealed that teachers made limited use of praise over criticism in managing classroom behavior. (CL)

Black and white male schoolchildren evaluated their own performance at a verbal task administered by black and white male experimenters. It was hypothesized that academically successful children would be predisposed to appraise themselves favorably and vice versa. The prediction was upheld in the white experimenter condition but not in the black…

Handwriting performance was measured over baseline, direct contingent reward, and implicit reward conditions for elementary-grade children from normal classes. Extinctive reactions present under implicit reward conditions were significantly stronger for groups of eight than for paired subjects. Age-level factors were not significantly related to…

A study of teacher reactions to pupils during reading group instruction found that: (1) there are no significant differences between Black and White teachers in their responses to pupils' academic activities; and that (2) Black students get significantly more negative feedback from teachers than do White students. (Author/MJL)

An elementary school principal explains how she promotes a positive working and learning environment in her school through written and verbal praise, open communications, and the sharing of ideas. (SJL)

Suggests an approach to health education that addresses the innate human drive for physical, mental, and spiritual well-being and to the inherent potential to learn behaviors that facilitate it. This approach involves parents and teachers, because children's behaviors are deeply influenced by them. (Author/BEF)