Creating Positive Elementary Classrooms: Preventing Behavior Challenges to Promote Learning(Special Education Law, Policy, and Practice)

A Teacher's Guide to Preventing Behavior PRoblems in the Elementary Education Classroom includes straightforward, feasible, and evidenced-based strategies designed to prevent behavior problems in K-5 classrooms. With an exclusive classroom focus, this practitioner-friendly book encourages teachers to be proactive in classroom management and guides them through the process of setting up their classrooms to maximize learning while focusing on prevention. Its emphasis on behavior problems before they occur enables teachers to run their classrooms more efficiently and experience less frustration, while also increasing student learning. A well-organized, systematic, and predictable teaching environment helps to prevent behaviors, and this book presents ways to achieve this type of classroom environment. Using real-life classroom scenarios, this guide equips teachers with management techniques that break the common cycle of frustration, aggression, rejection, and hostility, so they can create positive elementary classrooms.

About the Author :
Stephen W. Smith is professor of special education at the University of Florida. He is the author of 20 professional books and book chapters and has presented over 200 professional papers and research findings at many state, regional, national, and international professional conferences. Smith was awarded the 2018 Distinguished Researcher Award from the American Education Research Association, Special Education special interest group. Smith is a panel scientist for the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, and is on the editorial board of numerous professional journals in education and special education. Mitchell L. Yell is the Fred and Francis Lester Palmetto Chair in Teacher Education and professor in special education at the University of South Carolina. Yell has published 134 journal articles, six textbooks, 36 book chapters, and has conducted numerous workshops on various aspects of special education law, classroom management, and progress monitoring. His textbook, Special Education and the Law, is in its 5th edition. In 2020, he was awarded the Researcher of the Year from the Council for Exceptional Children. Yell also serves as a state-level due process review officer (SRO) in South Carolina and is on the board of directors of the Council for Exceptional Children. Prior to working in higher education, Yell was a special education teacher in Minnesota for 12 years.

Review :
A must-have book for elementary teachers and teacher candidates, Creating Positive Elementary Classrooms presents practical techniques grounded in research and best practices for preventing and responding to student behavior problems. Written in a practitioner-friendly style that is easy to follow, this book is the ideal combination of classroom scenarios, useful information, and research-based practices. Challenging behavior is often hard to deal with, because there is such a variety of behaviors and triggers. Creating Positive Elementary Classrooms provides a complete guide of strategies to reference and implement. With so many outside factors and environments, it is crucial to have a supportive environment for students to learn and grow. Stephen Smith and Mitchell Yell provide an excellent resource for individuals preparing to become teachers and for teachers in the field needing the latest research and best practice recommendations for creating positive learning environments. The book provides practical suggestions backed by research and concrete examples of what to look for in the classroom. The book also provides excellent context on how effective instruction and proactive classroom management techniques intertwine. Highly recommended!