I hope everyone had a restful and rejuvenating winter break! I’m thrilled to kick off the new year with a series on empowering our students through comprehensive behavior support. We'll be focusing on prevention, teaching, and responding to behavior with understanding and compassion, creating a supportive space for all students to thrive!

Prevent

The foundation of any effective behavior strategy lies in prevention. This involves focusing on proactive supports, such as the antecedent-based interventions we’ve discussed over the last few years in Tuesday Tips & Tricks. These include visual schedules, other visual supports, classroom structure, routines, environmental layout, and paraprofessional training-- just to name a few! When we prioritize prevention, we can create environments that reduce anxiety and frustration, helping students feel more comfortable and confident in their surroundings.

Prevention isn’t about controlling every moment but about setting up systems that support the unique needs of each student. By providing structure and predictability, we help students feel safe and ready to engage.

Teach

Once prevention strategies are in place, our next focus is teaching the skills that help students navigate the world around them. While prevention helps create a supportive environment, life is unpredictable. Schedules change, unexpected disruptions like fire drills occur, and new challenges—such as a change in transportation—arise. These everyday occurrences are part of life, but they can be overwhelming without the right tools.

That’s where teaching comes in. We can support students by teaching them self-regulation, communication, flexibility, and other skills that allow them to navigate changes and challenges more effectively. These skills empower students to manage their responses to these events and thrive in an ever-changing world.

Respond

Even with prevention and teaching in place, there will be times when behaviors occur. Responding with sensitivity and care is essential. This means ensuring that responses are focused on maintaining a safe, supportive space while respecting the student’s emotional and sensory needs.

Response isn’t about reacting with judgment or discipline—it’s about offering understanding, guidance, and support. By responding thoughtfully, we help students learn from the experience, gain insight, and build resilience.

By focusing on these three interconnected areas—prevent, teach, and respond—we can create classrooms where every student feels supported and empowered. I’m excited to explore these approaches further with you in the coming weeks and build a strong foundation for success.

As you get back into the swing of things, let’s prioritize prevention strategies to set the stage for success. A great place to start is by revisiting and reteaching your classroom routines and expectations—treat it like the beginning of the school year. Take it slow as you ease academic work back into the schedule. Remember, just like us, students have likely spent the past two weeks relaxing and enjoying their favorite activities. It may take some time for them to readjust to the structure and expectations of the school day. Patience and gradual transitions can make all the difference!

If you’re looking for guidance on teaching routines, be sure to explore the Classroom Routines series in the Past Tuesday Tips & Tricks section. It’s packed with step-by-step instructions and practical strategies to help you implement effective routines with ease!

If you’re anything like I was when I first started teaching, you might be thinking, “I know I need to reteach routines and expectations, but HOW do I actually do it? What does it LOOK like?” Here are some simple, effective steps for reteaching routines and expectations:

1. Identify key routines and expectations.

Start with the routines and expectations that are essential for your classroom to run smoothly. These could include tasks like checking schedules, transitioning through center rotations, following whole group expectations, or walking in the hallway.

2. Plan a time to reteach.

Find a time in your schedule that works well for reteaching. Morning meeting is ideal because it sets the tone for the day, but you can also integrate reteaching into direct instruction centers or other group activities.

3. Focus on one routine per day.

Break it down and keep it manageable. Add a slide to your morning meeting slide deck that outlines the steps for completing the routine and another slide that highlights the accompanying expectations.

4. Model the routine step-by-step.

Walk through each step of the routine while modeling what it looks like. Make it engaging! One fun strategy is to model the routine correctly and then repeat incorrectly. Have students point out what was incorrect—it’s an entertaining way to get them thinking critically and kick off the day with some laughter!

5. Use video modeling if available.

If you have video models of the routine, play them for the class. Pause to talk through each step and clarify any questions students might have.

6. Incorporate interactive activities.

Engage students with hands-on activities to reinforce routines. For example:

• Create a “Safe vs. Unsafe Actions” (formally expected vs. unexpected*) T-chart related to the routine you’re reteaching. Provide students with pictures or descriptions of various actions, and have them sort the actions into the appropriate categories. Check out the template available in the Resources section to create your own!
• Print pictures that correspond to the steps of the routine. Students can practice sequencing the steps in order, or if sequencing is not yet a skill they’re working on, they can simply match the pictures to the pictures of the routine steps.

These interactive approaches not only make learning fun but also help students internalize routines more effectively!

By taking it one step at a time and incorporating fun and engagement, reteaching routines and expectations can be a smooth, rewarding process—for both you and your students!

* The terms expected and unexpected behavior are commonly used in social-emotional learning to help students understand how behaviors might affect others in a given context. However, these terms can sometimes feel non-inclusive or less affirming for autistic individuals, as they may unintentionally reinforce the idea that certain behaviors are inherently "wrong" or "bad" if they don’t align with neurotypical expectations.

Consider using more inclusive alternatives that focus on the context and impact of behaviors. Examples include “safe vs. unsafe” or “helpful vs. unhelpful.” The most appropriate language will depend on the specific situation and the needs of your student group.

Throughout January and into February, we’ll explore new prevention strategies that we haven’t covered yet in Tuesday Tips & Tricks. These strategies include building strong relationships, incorporating special interests, offering choices, and using motivation effectively.

Check out the Winter Sports unit in Themes First!, which includes original songs, books, and activities that support students’ skill development and generalization with content that’s fun, accessible, and theme-based. These monthly units now include an expanded Social Studies suite, containing fun, theme-related activities that reinforce cultural engagement. Included in all Themes First! units are lessons, activities, and worksheets for group and independent work at a wide range of levels.

The next Themes First! release, An Ocean Life, will be ready to prep soon!

💡Print all the activities you plan to use for the upcoming month as soon as they become available. Put printed activities in a "prep" area equipped with a laminator, file folders, Velcro, labels, and baggies. If you have a large laminator, laminate all the activities at once! When you and your team have a few minutes to spare, laminate, cut, and Velcro. It helps to organize activities in trays by "Needs to be Prepped" and "Finished." Don't forget to teach your team how to prep the activities and to model this new expectation. Check out the How to Prep a Month-Long Themes First! Unit below.

Classroom Routines

Introduction

Teaching Routines

Classroom Slide Deck

Arrival Routine

Check Schedule Routine

Expectations

Resources for the New Year Series

STAR Media Center Updates

Caregiver Survey

Home-School Communication

Reset Checklist Visuals

2023-2024 Tuesday Tips & Tricks Newsletters

Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns via email or phone. I'm also available to chat via Zoom Mondays from 7:30-8:00 AM and 3:00-3:30 PM. If these times do not work for your schedule, please email me and we will find a time that will work for both of us.

Use the link below to ask questions about this week's Tuesday Tips 'N' Tricks and/or give suggestions on future topics.

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