The study was designed to examine the effect of teacher administered praise notes on the academic performance of three second grade special needs students with reading difficulty or learning disabilities. Also studied were effects of notes and their use in conjunction with parental social reinforcement. A multiple baseline procedure was used to…

A study explored the relationship of interest in story content, external incentives, and reading level to elementary school children's reading performance. The subjects, 75 fifth grade students who were either average or below-average readers, were asked to rate the content of five stories from "most" to "least" interesting and were then assigned…

The first phase of this study focused on the effects of message redundancy on communication accuracy of listeners in kindergarten, second, and fifth grades under memory and stimulus-visible conditions. Three nearly identical line drawings, each containing a large number of items in common and at least one distinctive feature, were presented on…

Examples of three behaviorally disordered students are used to describe the level system (in which the student moves from level 1, with much external control, to level 6, which is self management) at the Greene County Learning Center (Xenia, OH). The six guidelines for the center are outlined and the components of the level system are listed as…

Case studies were conducted to assess the personal learning styles and behaviors of elementary school children to provide teachers the opportunity of using prescribed teaching techniques to match students' styles. Six groups of behaviors were identified: (1) students demonstrate little internal control and are likely to act out and create…

An evaluation-reward system was developed in which students received points based on a comparison of their weekly quiz performance to a "base score" which was derived from a pretest, and adjusted to reflect actual weekly performance. This system was evaluated in terms of its effect on student achievement, using a group of English classes…

Reported is the 1969-70 school year of Vermont's Consulting Teacher Program (Chittenden Central) during which consultants assisted 29 elementary school teachers in providing special educational services to 109 students, of whom the majority were placed in regular classrooms. Program services are described as encompassing direct consultation,…

This module cluster is one of several developed for the Camden Teacher Corps project. The general objectives are to enable students to a) define basic operant terms, b) state basic operant principles, c) read operant measurement charts, and d) use operant principles and measurement in elementary classrooms with both social and academic behaviors.…

This pilot study investigates the socializing effect of school environments, specifically with respect to helping and sharing in children. Environmental conditions presumed to promote the development of helping and sharing in children are: (1) interdependent goals, (2) modeling, (3) reward of helping and sharing, (4) awareness of others' feelings,…

Children's self-control behavior in motor and cognitive tasks was examined in a series of two studies in which modeling and self-regulatory mechanisms were varied to assess the influence of each. In the first study, 6-, 7-, 9-, and 11-year-old children individually played a 20-trial game of 'Simon Says' (involving activation and inhibition trials)…

The document is designed to provide special education teachers with ideas and techniques for motivating reading at the elementary level. A student interest inventory is included, and motivation through reinforcement is explained. Techniques and suggestions for teachers include such items as making a slide show, making your own books, and using…

Teachers' comments to children can positively affect children's understanding of their reading skills. (MKM)

Available from: Sage Publications, Inc., 275 South Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, California 90212. Evaluated was the use of positive reinforcement in the remediation of severe perceptual motor disorders in the handwriting of four learning disabled boys (7 to 10 years old). (IM)

Studied 86 sixth graders to determine relationships among perceived contingency of teacher-administered reinforcements, locus of control, teacher ratings of children's helplessness-competence, and academic achievement. Children's internality of locus of control and their perceptions that teachers contingently administer rewards were predictive of…