How can teachers encourage and reinforce expected behaviors?
Page 5: Providing Rule Reminders
Children must be able to apply the rules in the context of classroom activities and routines. This application helps them be more successful in their environment. Educators can use several key strategies to encourage and remind children to follow the rules.
Connect children’s behavior to the rules: Although a child might be able to recite one of the classroom rules (e.g., “Follow directions”), the teacher might need to provide support to help the child understand how to use the rule in practice. The teacher can help a child understand the relationship between a behavior and the rule by clearly linking the two. For example, the teacher could say, “Isaac, you’re following directions at circle. Thank you for sitting on your bottom with your hands in your lap!” By doing this, the teacher is linking the rule “Follow directions” with Isaac’s appropriate sitting behavior.
Provide precorrections: A precorrection involves reminding a child of appropriate behavior before the child can make an error. Precorrections can be given to groups of children or individual children, as noted in the examples below.
- Precorrection provided to a group of children—”We are about to go into the hallway. Remember, we move safely and we keep our hands to ourselves.”
- Precorrection provided to an individual child—“Zane, it is yours and Molly’s turn to use the tablet. Remember, we need to take turns. That means you use the tablet for five minutes, and then Molly gets a turn with the tablet for five minutes. I’ll set the timer.”
Reference the rules: When children are having trouble following a rule, simply reminding them of the rule can be a powerful strategy for helping them understand how to use the rule in the classroom. For example, if Amy and Teisha are playing next to each other, and Teisha forcefully grabs a toy out of Amy’s hand, the teacher can comment, “Teisha, remember, we use gentle touches with our friends. What can you do next time you want a toy from a friend?”
In this interview, Erica Roy describes how rule reminders can be used to promote children’s success.
Erica Roy
Kindergarten teacher
(time: 1:36)
Transcript: Erica Roy
I think providing rule reminders is very important to help students be successful in the classroom, especially young children that are still learning how to navigate the structure of a school day in a classroom and expectations. Reminding them of these rules, whether individually or in a whole-group setting, I think helps them stay on track and also reinforces the behavior we want to see. And I think providing rule reminders is important at all ages, but especially at the younger ages when school is still so brand-new for them.
During a group time, if a student is a little too excited or talking over another person that’s sharing, I might gently remind them, “Remember to be a respectful listener so everyone has a chance to be heard.” And I try to do that in a calm tone. I think that helps the student refocus. Whenever I give a reminder, I always try to explain the “why” as well so they don’t feel like they’re being called out, but they understand that this reminder is to help them, not to hurt them or to embarrass them in any way.
Before transitions or during transitions even is another time that we’ll do a lot of reminders, especially for my kiddos who need a little extra support for arrival procedures, dismissal procedures, and things like that. And then other than that, it’s really just throughout the day as needed. But most of the times during those more unstructured times that more reminders are needed, so transition times, arrival and dismissal, and then before we get started on an activity.
