Reinforcement Theory

The reinforcement theory advocated by B.F.Skinner is a theory about understanding and correcting human behaviours based on the reinforcement principle of learning.Reinforcement，in its most basic form，refers to the positive or negative consequences(reward or punishment)that follow an action.The consequences to some extent determine whether the action will be repeated in the future.Reinforcement can be divided into positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement.At first，Skinner used reinforcement theory only for training animals，such as military dogs and circus animals.Later，Skinner further developed the theory of reinforcement and applied it to human learning，inventing Skinner’s procedural teaching method and teaching equipment.He stressed that the principle of small steps and timely feedback should be followed in learning，in order to divide big problems into many small ones to be solved individually;he also put the programmed teaching procedures on the equipment in teaching and received good results(Skinner，1966).

In the training，the reinforcement theory is applied to students’practice of Chinese characters by breaking characters down into various parts，including radicals.When conducting the air writing practice，students are required to know not only how to compose and decompose the characters they are learning but also the meanings，pronunciations and functions of those characters.Thus，the sound，shape and meaning of Chinese characters are connected，and students’memory of the characters is reinforced.