The Use of Praise to Encourage Behaviors in a Kindergarten Classroom

Abstract

When it comes to classroom management, teachers often struggle with knowing what effective strategies can proactively help their students. Behavior-specific praise is an evidence based practice where a teacher directs praise towards a specific learner based on their behavior. In this study a general education kindergarten teacher will be observed on her use of BSP during the school day. The purpose of this study is to observe how the use of BSP encourages target behaviors in a kindergarten classroom. The teacher being observed has 29 years of experience teaching kindergarten. Observing this teacher will be useful in understanding when an experienced teacher implements BSP versus general praise to her students. The observations were conducted by an undergraduate special education teacher candidate in a rural school district in Georgia