ABSTRACT
It can be difficult to determine the criterion, or standard, of success required to show that the pupil has really learnt the task and, again, the decision has to be left to teacher judgement and knowledge of the individual pupil. How many times will the child have to give the correct response and how quick and fluent should the response be before it is felt that a particular objective has been learnt? William’s teacher chose as her criterion ten ‘ticks’ for each sight word but she could have chosen a different criterion or she could have changed it in the light of her observations when teaching William. If the standard set by the teacher is too high then time can be wasted in unnecessary repetition and, if it is too low, then the pupil will not have had the opportunity to master the task thoroughly. The individual teacher will, however, refine her ability to set appropriate targets and criteria by establishing a record-keeping system which checks at a later date whether the learnt task has still been retained. This form of record keeping requires a longer-term plan for each objective. Three items are required: (a) The date when practice began on a particular target task.
