Tools Not Rules®

Developing Self-Regulation for Improved Student Behavior in Grades K–8 (Discover the Tools Not Rules approach to better student behavior.)

Claudia Bertoloni-Smith

• Publisher: Solution Tree Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781958590867
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Classroom Management

Engage your students in monitoring, understanding, and improving their behavior using the Tools Not Rules (TNR) approach. By limiting isolation, shame, and judgment from the choices students make, this approach allows students to honestly assess and effectively regulate their behaviors. With helpful strategies and thoughtful language, teachers using TNR can create a welcoming and encouraging environment for students to learn, improve, and excel.

K–8 teachers and administrators can use this book to:

• Promote a healthy educator mindset that recognizes students are more than the choices they make
• Increase positive connections with students by helping them diminish behaviors getting in the way of academic success
• Develop an effective and reliable plan for working with behaviors that hinder student learning
• Encourage honesty to develop students' accountability regarding their behavior choices
• Employ diverse strategies to promote students' behavior awareness and self-regulation
• Improve the classroom community and learning environment through the use of a novel approach to changing whole class and individual student behavior
• Adopt thoughtful language that facilitates constructive self-assessment and improvement
• Build an empathetic community among students, recognizing that everyone can choose unproductive behaviors and then change to more effective ones

Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Ensuring Honesty Above Anything Else
Chapter 2: Establishing That You Are Not Your Behavior
Chapter 3: Adopting the Tools Not Rules Language
Chapter 4: Teaching and Using the Tools Not Rules Language With Students
Chapter 5: Changing the Most Challenging Behaviors With the Star Chart
Chapter 6: Overcoming Implementation Challenges and Realizing Possibilities
Epilogue: Moving Forward
Appendix: The Tools Not Rules Study
References and Resources
Index

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgments
• Table of Contents
• About The Authors
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Ensuring Honesty Above Anything Else
• Chapter 2 Establishing That You Are Not Your Behavior
• Chapter 3 Adopting the Tools Not Rules Language
• Chapter 4 Teaching and Using the Tools Not Rules Language With Students
• Chapter 5 Changing the Most Challenging Behaviors With the Star Chart
• Chapter 6 Overcoming Implementation Challenges and Realizing Possibilities
• Epilogue: Moving Forward
• Appendix: The Tools not Rules Study
• References and Resources
• Index