Teachers in AKA kindergartens are very aware of supporting children to develop a growth mind-set and praising them in ways that develop their learner identity.
In her online article ‘Preschoolers and Praise: What Kinds of Messages Help Kids Grow?’ Deborah Farmer Kris, writing for MindShift, discusses the work of Dr Carissa Romeo and psychologist Professor Carol Dweck (both from Stanford University) in the development of children’s mind-sets and how the “language we use helps shape young children’s understanding of themselves and their abilities”.
In particular she focusses on resilience and how developing a healthy attitude towards learning is essential. By seeing learning as a process and persevering when they encounter difficulty or make a mistake, children develop a “growth mind-set”. Farmer Kris quotes Dr Carissa Romeo, who says this growth mindset “helps children develop into lifelong learners who take on challenges and learn from them, rather than crumble in the face of them.”
Dweck, Romeo and others warn that all praise is not equal. Their research has shown praise is far more effective if it is specific and related to technique or effort, rather than assessing intelligence or compliance. Their research showed feedback to children that labels them simply as “very clever”, “very good” or “smart” did not contribute to a growth mind-set.
In a keynote address at an Intelligent Mind-sets conference in Auckland (hosted by Learning Network NZ), Dweck encouraged adults to praise children for:
- Process
- Strategy
- Focus
- Persistence
- Making a good choice
- Improvement
- Struggle
- Learning from mistakes
Dweck cautioned that adults should be wary of praising how quickly a task is done. Quick is not always best. Dweck recommends harnessing the power of “yet”. For example, when a child says “I can’t do it!” The parent or teacher can acknowledge this by saying “You might not be able to write all letters in your name yet, but you have got the first two letters. Well done, if you keep practicing, I know you will get better at the other letters too”.
Romero concludes that a focus on specific praise supports the growth of resilience which ultimately “leads to more success in school and in life” – an aspiration that every teacher and parent/caregiver holds for their children.
References and other reading
Farmer Kris, D (2015, June 10). Preschoolers and Praise: What Kinds of Messages Help Kids Grow? Retrieved from: http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/06/10/preschoolers-and-praise-messages-that-can-help-kids-grow/
To read more about “the inverse power of praise”, visit http://nymag.com/news/features/27840.