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Using Teacher-Written Praise Notes to Promote a Positive Environment in a Middle School Julie A. Peterson Nelson, Benjamin J. Young, Ellie L. Young, and Gregory Cox ABSTRACT: Teachers in 1 middle school learned about the positive school adults intentionally seek opportunities to build and effects of writing praise notes to students, which is 1 component strengthen adult–youth relationships, they may actually be of a positive behavior support. The authors intended for this pro- decreasing the likelihood that students will act out in the cedure to promote a positive school environment and reinforce future (Young, Black, Marchant, Mitchem, & West, 2000). the appropriate use of social skills. Also, the authors instructed To meet educational goals, educators must do more than the teachers to use a direct instruction model to teach social skills lessons during 1st-period classes and praise students when they merely prevent antisocial behaviors; they must increase proso- effectively demonstrated these skills. The authors analyzed the cial behaviors (Winette & Winkler, 1972). Unfortunately, data to determine whether students receiving praise notes were schools in the United States continue to encourage punish- less likely to receive an office discipline referral (ODR). The data ment for problem behaviors (Noguera, 2003), which, in the revealed a significant negative correlation between the number of absence of a positive schoolwide system of support, has been praise notes and number of ODRs that students received, indicat- ing that as praise notes increased, the rate of ODRs decreased. The associated with increased aggression, vandalism, tardiness, authors provide several hypotheses for this relation. truancy, and dropouts (Mayer & Sulzer-Azeroff, 1991). Other researchers have suggested that reinforcing positive behaviors KEYWORDS: positive behavior support, praise, schoolwide inter- rather than punishing inappropriate behaviors is an effective...