Positive Special Education: Theories, Applications and Inspiration

Positive Special Education spotlights the power of positive special education, combining insights from researchers and teachers in special education from several countries.

The expert team of authors, being both teachers and academics, highlight the powerful influence of teachers fostering optimistic approaches as well as the impact a positive educational experience has on young students. Instead of focusing on medical perspectives and individual deficits, this book’s uniqueness lies in showcasing how educators, students, and care workers can be empowered to overcome daily challenges by changing beliefs and attitudes. Based on extensive experience in schools across Sweden and the UK, this book:

• contains a history of positive special education and central theoretical concepts such as self-efficacy, implicit theories, and inclusion
• explores the potential of digital tools and how they can support students with their learning and development;
• focuses on instructional methods in reading, writing, and vocabulary development.

Practical case studies throughout the book provide various examples for educators to apply the principles of positive special education in different learning environments. It is a must-read for teachers in SEND and mainstream schools, in preschool, pre-service teachers as well as undergraduate or masters’ students in education.

Table of Contents

1. What is positive special education?
2. Positive special education: Why are teachers’ and students’ self-efficacy important? Consequences for reading instruction and civic education
3. Special educational consequences of implicit notions of ability
4. An inclusive optimistic approach to inclusion
5. Inviting students to develop their capabilities through narrative
6. Digital tools in the classroom
7. Teaching expressive communication to pupils with SEND
8. Teaching Functional Literacy to Pupils with SEN
9. Inclusive Literacy: film, visuals and creative writing - the Facts in the Case of Misfter Hollow
10. Using visuals and film to support literacy
11. Positive Special Education: Challenge students to read and write in a creative way without fixed material
12. Learning words and understanding their morphological structures
13. Using a simple text to develop literacy in an inclusive classroom
14. Differentiated teaching
15. The Witting Method - safe, creative and without textbook