Often when I do Talk Audits in schools I hear praise such as Good boy! Fantastic! Amazing!
This week I worked with a team who felt passionately that some of their young pupils need to hear lots of positives, as they may not be getting enough at home. I absolutely agree! But let’s make it about what they are specifically doing, not just a general comment. We need to use praise which empowers children to reflect, to move on with their learning or behaviour, and to become confident, independent learners.
Here are a few examples of what is sometimes called ‘behaviour-specific praise’:
You’ve tied your shoelaces on your own – brilliant!
Thank you Mia for tidying up so quickly!
Lovely straight underlining, Jamal.
I really like the way you justified your opinion, Katie.
I can see you’ve edited and decided that ‘gloomy’ was a better word choice than ‘rainy’ to set the scene for your story – that’s really effective.
My earlier post about praise includes a short video about research into feedback.
