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

Claudia Bertolone-Smith; Marlene Moyer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1958590851 ISBN 13: 9781958590850

Publisher: Solution Tree Press, 2025

Synopsis

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

About this title

About the Author

Claudia Bertolone-Smith, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Education at California State University Chico. She has been an educator since 1990, with experience teaching first through seventh grade. She has a wide range of educational experiences, from teaching in an urban alternative elementary school focused on involving parents in education to teaching in rural schools with diverse populations, a wide range of socioeconomic statuses, and a conservative approach to education. In her current position, Claudia teaches credential program courses in mathematics education.
Claudia is a board member of the California Mathematics Council–North and the Mount Lassen Mathematics Council. She has presented throughout the United States on topics such as development of a positive mathematics identity, units coordination with fractions, mathematics discussion routines, and addressing challenging student behaviors that get in the way of learning.
Claudia received a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Oregon, a master’s degree in mathematics education from Walden University, and a doctorate in curriculum, teaching, and learning with a focus on mathematics education from the University of Nevada, Reno.
To learn more about Claudia’s work, follow her @toolsnotrules on X, formerly known as Twitter. You can find out more about Tools Not Rules at .toolsnotrules.com or @tools_notrules on Instagram.

Marlene Moyer, MAT, is a seventh-grade English teacher at South Lake Tahoe Middle School in South Lake Tahoe, California. She has taught for more than twenty years in Nevada and California. Currently, she is the English department curriculum leader and is also a mentor teacher.
Marlene was an integral part of her middle school’s leadership team that transitioned them to standards-based grading and designed student-friendly critical concepts for student scoring using Robert J. Marzano’s High Reliability Schools model.
Since 2013, Marlene and Claudia have codesigned and copresented at numerous conferences and workshops, including at the CTA Good Teaching Conference in Northern and Southern California, focusing on classroom management strategies that are the basis of Tools Not Rules. They have also presented a family engagement workshop at the Nevada Family Engagement Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada, and a mathematics discourse workshop at the NCTM conference in Denver, Colorado.
Marlene is a member of the California Teachers Association. In 2007, she was awarded Walmart & Sam’s Club Local Teacher of the Year; and in 2010, she earned Teacher of the Year from Minden Elementary School in Minden, Nevada.
Marlene earned her bachelor’s degree in liberal studies from Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California. She completed her fifth-year teaching credential and master’s degree from Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village, Nevada. Her master’s degree study involved best teaching practices for gifted and talented students.
To learn more about Marlene’s work, follow her @toolsnotrules on X, formerly known as Twitter. You can find out more about Tools Not Rules at toolsnotrules.com or @tools_notrules on Instagram.
To book Claudia Bertolone-Smith or Marlene Moyer for professional development, contact pd@SolutionTree.com.

Edition details

• Publisher: Solution Tree Press
• Publication date: 2025
• ISBN 10: 1958590851
• ISBN 13: 9781958590850
• Binding: Perfect Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 176