Using children’s books to support social-emotional development

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