Brief Report: Integrating Social-Emotional Learning with Literacy Instruction: An Intervention for Children at Risk for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Abstract

It is widely believed that children's social-emotional growth and academic learning are inextricably connected. Pressured by high-stakes assessments, however, school professionals find it difficult to devote adequate time to children's social/behavioral development. As a response, we developed and piloted Social-Emotional Learning Foundations (SELF), a curriculum for students at risk for emotional or behavioral problems that merges instruction in social-emotional learning with early literacy skills. Designed for small-group instruction, the SELF curriculum provides teachers multiple opportunities to extend language and promote emotional and behavioral self-regulation while teaching early literacy skills that include vocabulary development and comprehension. This preliminary study was used to explore intervention feasibility, pilot implementation, and measurement protocols and to provide some evidence in support of further study. Findings from the pilot implementation in eight kindergarten classrooms indicated that SELF lessons improved teacher-reported executive function, internalizing behavior, and school-related competence. As a preface to a more rigorously designed efficacy study, the pilot study results provide preliminary evidence that integrating social-emotional learning and literacy instruction may be a viable strategy for promoting self-regulation in the service of positive social and academic outcomes for children at risk.

Searching for Dumbledore: A reflection upon the outcomes of a tailored emotional literacy programme on three key stage 2 children

“…Developing children's EL facilitates changing established patterns of behaviour (Daunic et al ., ; Corrie, ). This may be conceptualised as a means of empowering children to understand and manage emotions to enable them to handle social situations (Camerelli et al ., ).…”

“…These role models were successful at explaining their ideas clearly without dominating the group. Activities, such as role‐play, predicated upon experiential learning approaches, may also support comprehension and developing new competences (Daunic et al ., ; Camerelli et al ., ). Overall, the data suggests that although some pro‐social behaviour had improved, the children's ability to resolve disputes had not.…”

Correlations Between Components of Social Emotional Learning of Secondary School Students in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

“…In aligment with other previous studies, strong and positive correlations between different components of SEL were also found in this study. Previous studies have found that there is a positive correlation between self-awareness and health and emotion (Daunic et al, 2013), expectancy (Durlak et al, 2011, life satisfaction (Jones et al, 2015), anti-social behaviors, and school absenteeism (Brackett et al, 2004). It is suggested that teaching methods for the development of self-awareness from the other countries could be learnt to be applied into the Vietnamese education program.…”

“…Some studies showed the positive correlation between relationship skills and emotional health (Hattie, 2009), negative correlation with anti-social behaviors (Garner, 2010) and mental health such as anxiety and depression (Daunic et al, 2013). In general, there is a spread of relationship skills competence among individuals.…”

Using dialogic reading strategies to promote social-emotional skills for young students: An exploratory case study in an after-school program

“…There has been an increased focus on the necessity to integrate social-emotional learning (SEL) with academic instruction for students, especially those at risk for emotional and behavioral problems in the United States (Berger et al, 2011; Daunic et al, 2013; Elias and Haynes, 2008; Liu et al, 2017). Researchers have found that SEL is crucial for mental health and overall wellbeing (Denham, 2006; Heller et al, 2012), and is one of the most important abilities supporting school success later in life (Morgan et al, 2008).…”