It isn’t necessary to measure an 80% accuracy rate precisely in your informal learning games and other teaching and learning activities. But it is important to ensure your child is responding correctly most of the time so that you can genuinely praise him for his correct responses. Here is an example of adjusting the difficulty to meet your child’s ability during a learning game:
Example: A father wants to help his son learn to tell the difference between numbers through the use of an educational game. When the atmosphere is relaxed and it is play-time for the child, Dad suggests that they play the number game together. The two start playing and the child responds correctly to only half of the items. The parent immediately moves the level of difficulty back to where the child is answering about eight out of every ten problems correctly. This gives the child a feeling of accomplishment, but the level of difficulty is still challenging, as evidenced by the few incorrect responses that are made. After some time, the child begins to show disinterest. Although Dad is anxious for the child to continue, he stops the game without pressure or unpleasantness. He praises his son for success even though he would have been pleased with more progress.
Comment: This parent knows that successful learning will not continue if the child experiences failure too many times. Thus, Dad adjusted the level of difficulty so that most of his son’s attempts were successful. The child ended the game too soon to please the parent, but when gentle persuasion did not entice the child to keep playing, Dad did not pressure his son. The child increased his ability to discriminate between numbers and had fun with Dad as a result of this well-conducted activity.
What do you think? Please let me know if you are reading this blog.
If you find yourself in the position of correcting your child almost constantly, you must immediately simplify the activity to fit your child’s level of understanding and proficiency or the whole thing is likely to turn sour very quickly. If you are outside pitching a baseball to your son from 10 yards away and he misses it almost every time, then you must change your approach. Scoot closer and continue scooting closer (and continue to praise his efforts) until he can hit the ball about 8 out of every 10 times you pitch it.
Please share your thoughts and experiences.
With the basics of reinforcement understood, we are now ready to move on to another aspect of reinforcement theory: the 80% rule. The 80% rule is effective with virtually any child in any situation. In order for a learning activity to be rewarding or reinforcing to a child, it must be sufficiently pleasurable for him. Experience shows that for a learning activity to be pleasurable for a child, he should be able to respond correctly 80% of the time.
For example, if you are working on color identification with your young child by throwing him one colored ball at a time and letting him tell you what color it is, he should be able to respond correctly 8 out of every 10 times you throw a ball. If you are using four balls of different colors and your child gets every second ball color wrong, then the activity is too hard for him. In order to keep the activity reinforcing to him, remove two colored balls and play with only two balls of different colors. If he can say the correct color 8 out of every 10 times, then the activity is appropriate for his skill level in identifying colors. On a later occasion, add back in one ball color at a time until he is proficient at identifying the original colors and the new colors about 80% of the time.
In any learning activity, it is important for your child to hear consistent praise and encouragement from you. But without following the 80% rule, even your best efforts to praise will not be enough. It is simply not reinforcing enough for a child to hear time after time, “You got it wrong again, but keep trying! That was a really good try!” If a child continuously responds incorrectly, it ceases to matter how much you praise him for his efforts. It will not be fun or satisfying for him to be wrong most of the time.
What do you think about the 80% rule? Please let me know your thoughts.
