Enhancing Social Emotional Development through Children's Literature.

1. Using children’s books to support social-emotional development NAEYC Annual Conference Dallas, TX November 6, 2008 Maril Olson NAEYC Coordinator of Family and Community Initiatives Susan Friedman NAEYC Senior Editor

2. Session Outcomes  Understand how children’s literature can help support healthy social-emotional development  Recognize different kinds of literature and describe their benefits  Learn about specific titles that support social-emotional development  Obtain ideas for embedding social- emotional content of books into daily activities

3. Why children’s books?  Children need intentional support for social- emotional development: friendship skills, emotional literacy, empathy, impulse control, problem solving  Children need support to cope with a range of challenges: broken toys, friend won’t share, new sibling, sibling rivalry, moving, unemployment, deployment, incarceration, divorce, death  Helps children acquire new skills/concepts; become fluent in using new skills; maintain without prompting from adult; generalize to different settings/people/situations  Easy and fun way to be more intentional about supporting social-emotional development

4. Social-emotional books  Written explicitly about feelings/behaviors  Build feeling vocabularies and/or provide information about behavioral expectations  Direct, instructional format

5. Authentic children’s literature…  Tells a good story in its own right; well- crafted  Addresses challenging issues within a storyline:  Directly as part of the storyline  Indirectly by including coping/problem solving as part of the broader story  Real-life situations  Engages more than books that focus on specific situations in a direct, instructional format

6. Children’s literature…  Helps children better understand life experiences  Provides insights into human behaviors, emotions, dilemmas  Stimulates curiosity  Develops problem-solving skills  Informs with facts, concepts, new understanding, demystifies  Provides comfort  Models coping strategies by walking readers through possible solutions or ways to cope

7. Using literature in the classroom…  Be sensitive to circumstances and personalities  Open communication between home and school helps create safety needed to take emotional risks  Introduce sensitive issues/content beforehand  Provide opportunities for responding to books – orally, through art, writing, movement, etc.  Honor children’s unique response to books  Read the same book for several days to provide more opportunities for children to talk about the story, predict what will come next, learn new vocabulary, talk about own experiences  Use to embed social-emotional skills building into every day activities: circle time, art, music, science, math, dramatic play

8. Small Group Activity  What social-emotional theme(s) does your book address?  How might you use this book to support social-emotional development:  During large group time  In centers  At other times of the day  Activity ideas

9. What are your ideas? How do you use children’s literature in the classroom to support social- emotional development?

10. Resources  Young Children www.naeyc.org/btj/200809  Teaching Young Children http://tyc.naeyc.org/  Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning www.vanderbilt.edu/csefel  Technical Assistance Center on Social Emotional Interventions for Yong Children www.challengingbehavior.org  Abiyoyo www.ed.uiuc.edu/sped/SPARK/abiyoyo.pdf  Glad Monster Sad Monster www.edemberley.com