Social-Emotional Learning in Preschool

Reading Log #4: Social-Emotional Learning in Preschool

Megan Meyer

Kutztown University

March 31, 2020

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Abstract

This reading log summarizes the article “Preschool: Promoting Young Children’s Social

and Emotional Health,” which was obtained through the JSTOR database. The focus is on the

numerous methods to promote and instruct young students about proper social and emotional

behaviors. Multiple studies discuss the positive benefits of social-emotional health on a student’s

development and learning. These studies are referenced for a consensus on the most important

techniques to help nurture children’s social and emotional health, which are detailed throughout

the piece.
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Preschool: Promoting Young Children’s Social and Emotional Health

As the title suggests, Jeannie Ho and Suzanne Funk write about the importance of social-

emotional health, its effects on student achievement, and how to promote social-emotional

learning at an early age. “Two of the most important practices: building trusting relationships

and conducting intentional teaching” will be the basis for nurturing students’ social-emotional

health (Ho & Funk, p. 74). Building trusting relationships demands time and effort with your

students, and to begin doing so teachers have to offer affection, warmth, care, and respect.

Consistency and fairness allow for all students to form a bond with their teacher, even on days

where children are misbehaving, displaying affection and good behavior continues to strengthen

the connections. Several examples of actions teachers can take every day when teaching,

managing their classroom, and more are provided to better promote students’ social-emotional

health in subtle ways.

Ho and Funk move from detailing what they observed that radiated affection and warmth

to what will display respect and care. “Teachers’ acknowledgments make children feel heard and

accepted. As a result, children feel safe to express their emotions—and receive support in

identifying, labeling, and better understanding their emotions” (Ho & Funk, p. 75). Listening to

students, spending quality time with them, and showing that their feelings matter generates more

of these interactions and deepens teachers’ bonds with their students. It’s a constant cycle of

support and attention that sets the idea in a child’s mind of how people should treat each other.

Resources that many of the teachers observed during the study are provided for various

ways to teach social and emotional skills. They present a list of books some of the teachers use to

demonstrate appropriate behavior, activities to further embed the newly learned social-emotional

skills, and tips on how to better coach or praise students. Modeling is always an important
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technique to teach and display appropriate behaviors to students, which makes it just as

important when it comes to social and emotional skills. It’s the golden rule, “Teach others the

way you want to be treated.”

When discussing visual and verbal cues overall, there was a variety of approaches to help

promote social and emotional learning. “ Long-term visual cues function like a third teacher in

the sense that children use the cues to remind one another of solutions and appropriate actions”

(Ho & Funk, p. 78). Establishing these cues can give a teacher an extra set of tools when it

comes to disciplining and praising students’ behaviors.

The whole article really opened my eyes to what exactly social-emotional health and

learning are. I wasn’t quite sure what it entailed, but these are all actions I’ve witnessed during

ProSem and even during my own time as a student. It doesn’t always have to be a tremendous

deed that you do; it can be a bunch of small acts that show you care every day. I never thought to

detail out what I was praising a student for, like repeating what interaction occurred and then

telling them they did a great job. Also, I love the phrase “use gentle hands” to remind students

not to hit others or be aggressive when handling objects. It was a well-written and helpful piece

to obtain procedures and routines to implement in my future classroom to form relationships with

my students that will be meaningful and impactful.

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References

Ho, Jeannie, & Funk, Suzanne (2018). Preschool: Promoting Young Children’s Social and

Emotional Health. YC Young Children, 73(1), 73-79. doi:10.2307/90019485.