About This Title

"The most helpful and practical resource I own! It has aided me in increasing my efficiency and therefore my confidence in the classroom. This is a must-read for all first- year teachers!"
Jennifer Jackson, First-Grade Bilingual Teacher
Landels Elementary School
Mountain View, CA

"A blockbuster book for the beginning teacher—chock-full of practical and imaginative suggestions. A source book of fine educational practices."
Mary B. Roberts, Principal (retired)
University of San Francisco College of Education, CA

"Kathleen Jonson has designed an excellent road map to guide new teachers during their beginning years."
Gail Adams, Program Administrator
Curriculum Improvement and Professional Development
San Francisco Unified School District, CA

An invaluable companion for any beginning teacher, this definitive resource has been updated to offer even more tried and true techniques to foster triumphant teaching. Drawing upon more than 27 years’ experience as an educator, the author highlights the most effective strategies that lead to powerful results in the classroom.

The New Elementary Teacher’s Handbook Flourishing in Your First Year, second edition, provides desperately needed, yet often unavailable, practical advice. This easy-to-read, jargon-free guide empowers new teachers with the tools necessary not only to feel prepared, confident, and comfortable, but also to succeed, maintain enthusiasm, and remain committed to the profession. It is teeming with helpful hints, red flags to watch for, examples of best practices, and time-saving solutions for some of the most common questions and concerns practitioners face.

Among the numerous strategies and survival skills the book promotes are time and stress management, effective organization, quality lesson plans, and professional development. It deals with such issues as assessment, preventive discipline, homework, and motivation. Jonson offers sound advice on building positive relationships with parents and conducting school events, including a parent conference, open house, and back-to-school night. Resources include sample homework and behavior contracts, model letters to parents, and examples of programs for students with special needs.

This enhanced second edition offers the following new features:

• Classroom-tested techniques for overcoming the challenges of a multicultural, demographically diverse student population, including limited-English-proficient students
• Tips for maximizing technology
• Twelve additional "Resource" sections that provide quick-reference ideas easy to implement in any classroom
• Tactics for coping with—and even embracing—the pressures of accountability, high standards, and high-stakes testing

Resources include sample homework and behavior contracts, model letters to parents, and examples of programs for students with special needs.