New Ways to Show We Care Just in time for Valentine's Day
Since Valentine’s Day is coming up (Feb 14), in this blog post I wanted to touch on the topic of positive feedback as one of the ways we can show our kids love when we teach them. I also spoke about this topic during my Facebook Live on Thursday Feb 9.
If you have worked with children before, you know how positive feedback can really motivate a child to keep trying and do their best.
However, for some of us it can be hard to think of what exactly to say to a child, and we wind up repeating the same phrases (e.g. ‘good job!’) over and over again until it loses impact.
Genuine Positive Feedback Can Include Gentle Error Correction
We all know the difference between a genuine compliment and a generic compliment that doesn’t resonate or inspire.
This is the reasons why I made a Positive Reinforcement Tip Sheet about how to give Positive Feedback to children.
It includes examples of things you can pay attention to, ideas for how to comment on all attempts (successful or not), and lists ideas for different ways to celebrate progress during a lesson. It also includes some of my best suggestions for how to give gentle error correction in a way that is specific enough to feel genuine and constructive, but couched in a positive way, so the child is motivated to try again and not shut down and give up.
For example, I like to notice what a child has done correctly before pointing out what needs more work. Last week a boy I was teaching sight words to said ‘rough’ when I held up the flashcard ‘through’. I pointed out to him that yes, the word ‘rough’ is in the word ‘through’. How clever that he caught that! But then I asked him what he thought the word was when we added the ‘th’ at the beginning. He didn’t hesitate to give me the correct answer. He was willing to try again because he felt good about the acknowledgement of his attempt and for getting it partly correct.
More Ways to Add Variety to Giving Feedback
I use to add variety to a lesson and keep it light and fun is to add ‘sillibrations’, which are quick actions to celebrate a correct answer. Sometimes we stand up and strike a superhero pose, or do a quick dance, or pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. There is a long list of examples in my Tip Sheet for inspiration as well as tips for working them into a learning session without derailing your lesson.
This Tip Sheet is available in my shop on my site, along with the other special lesson I created to help celebrate Valentine’s Day this month; a complete lesson plan to teach the sight word ‘heart’.
Let me know if you have experienced other situations that I haven’t addressed in the Positive Reinforcement Tip Sheet, and I will be happy to address them in an upcoming Live on Facebook (every Thursday).
Kind regards,
Norma Jean Maxwell
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