biology

Preschool Through Primary Grades

Emotions color our experiences and influence social development. In children, they mark the peaks and valleys of daily life, manifested in

squeals of delight during play, angry defiance when faced with an unpleasant task, glee at completing a task independently, and distress over a squabble with a friend. Emotions influence our thoughts and actions, affect our moods, impact our relationships, and contribute to our daily outlook. Emotions are universal, biological, and relational (Trawick-Smith 2013), emerging from, and providing the basis for, human attachments, social communication, and prosocial—as well as antisocial—encounters with others (Emde 1998).

Emotional literacy is the understanding of and ability to manage one’s feelings and emotions (Schiller 2009). Similarly, social literacy is an understanding of and ability to manage oneself in group situations (Willis & Schiller 2011). A prerequisite to social competence is the ability to monitor and regulate one’s emotional state. These dimensions often overlap and are interdependent. For example, conflict resolution involves both emotional self-regulation and social problem-solving skills (Epstein 2009). The term social- emotional literacy best captures the dual nature of this vital area of child development.

A major developmental achievement for children is acquiring skills that allow them to be effective and appropriate in their interactions with others. Preschool-age children are developing cognitive, language, and social skills essential for learning. In the case of social skills, this includes the ability to get along with others, to make friends, and to become engaged

in a social group (Shonkoff & Phillips 2000). The social-emotional domain of development encompasses children’s social skills in conjunction with their ability to experience, express, and regulate emotions and to establish loving, supportive relationships with others (Day & Parlakian 2004).

Why social-emotional literacy is important

Social-emotional literacy is an important component of children’s successful peer interactions and school readiness (Denham 2006). Emotion regulation is

Using Picture Books to Promote Social-Emotional Literacy

Laurie J. Harper

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the ability to adapt and change one’s emotions and control emotional displays in a variety of situations, particularly those associated with social intensity, such as negotiating conflict with peers. Children’s knowledge of emotions and their ability to regulate them are important for building the social competence necessary to interact positively with peers, family, and teachers (Denham et al. 2003).

High-quality children’s literature that contains authentic characters, realistic problems, and possible resolutions validates children’s emotions while offering models for managing strong emotions.

Developing social-emotional literacy is an important objective across settings. Social-emotional competence is associated with positive developmental and academic outcomes and is a predictor of later well-being, good mental health, and academic competence (NAEYC & NAECS/SDE 2002). Most social and emotional development goals in early learning standards focus on expressing and understanding the emotions of oneself and others, and interacting effectively in relationships with peers and adults (Scott-Little, Kagan, & Frelow 2006). The ability to identify and name feelings is essential for children’s regulation of emotions, development of empathy, and use of appropriate prosocial behavior (Hyson 2004). It provides the foundation for children’s ability to explore, learn, and interact effectively with others (Goleman 2006; Riley et al. 2008). Emotions and the ability—or lack of ability—to self-regulate can foster—or undermine—the development of newly acquired skills and competencies in young children.

Scaffolding social-emotional literacy

Understanding what emotions are, what they mean, and how they are labeled by one’s culture are things we learn from each other. Teachers play an important role in fostering young children’s social-emotional development by helping them learn language to

describe their feelings. Effective teachers attend to children’s emotional states, accept children’s full range of emotions, and provide language labels—clear words such as angry, happy, and sad for feelings to help children develop a vocabulary for emotions (Epstein 2007).

Development of emotional literacy accelerates once children have language to express themselves. When children learn a feeling word that matches their experiences, they gain new emotional understanding. They begin to make a leap from reactive behavior to conscious control (Denham & Burton 1996). Acquiring a vocabulary to describe emotions allows children to recognize their feelings more consistently and relate them to earlier emotional experiences. In this way children learn from experience and begin taking conscious control of emotional expression (Riley et al. 2008).

Benefits of sharing high-quality picture books with children

Picture books can provide the framework for building empathy, tolerance, and friendships and reinforce social-emotional, problem-solving, and conflict resolution skills in young children (Kemple 2004). Sharing high-quality picture books with children may heighten their awareness of emotions, enhance their sensitivity to other’s feelings, promote empathetic behaviors toward others, and foster moral development (Harper & Trostle-Brand 2010). Further, picture books provide young children with language labels and illustrations of facial expressions to help them identify and process the range of human emotion.

Sharing high-quality literature with young children provides a range of language to help them identify, label, and express emotions. High-quality children’s literature that contains authentic characters, realistic problems, and possible resolutions validates children’s emotions while offering models for managing strong emotions. Sharing such literature allows for the discussion of emotion-provoking conflicts and events that may mirror those routinely experienced by children, helping foster children’s resiliency and coping skills. This article describes high-quality children’s literature that challenges and builds young children’s emotional competency.

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Selecting high-quality children’s picture books

To create a list of exemplary books for promoting social-emotional development, I examined, analyzed, and evaluated 50 children’s picture books. Evaluation criteria were based on literary elements (plot, character, setting, theme, and style), visual elements (line, color, shape, texture, and composition), artistic style (realistic, abstract, folk, or cartoon), and artistic medium (pen and ink, pastels, pencil, collage, woodcut, oil paints, watercolors, or photographs) consistent with high- quality children’s literature (Kiefer & Tyson 2009). Although all the books examined were appropriate for

assisting young children in understanding emotions, five titles were identified as exemplary because they promote children’s comprehension of emotions in three important ways (see “Feelings and Emotions: Exemplary Children’s Picture Books”).

First, these picture books contain believable stories and realistic plots, and depict characters that display a range of emotions consistent with the events and emotions experienced by children in comparable situations across the globe. Second, the text matches the facial features expressed by children in the illustrations as they communicate feelings and use words associated with the full range of human emotion. These picture clues assist children in building a vocabulary of words associated with emotion. Third, the use of vivid

Feelings and Emotions: Exemplary Children’s Picture Books

Title, author, and date Book summary

Feelings to Share From A to Z, by Todd and Peggy Snow, illus. Carrie Hartman. 2007

This book helps children build and apply a vocabulary for communicating their emotions. Feelings invites children to name, claim, and share their emotions. Ages 2–8.

How Are You Peeling? Foods With Moods, by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers. 1999

Fruits and vegetables depict the range of human emotion with great detail in facial expressions. This story facilitates the connection between facial expression, feelings, and expressive language. Ages 2–8.

Sometimes I’m Bombaloo, by Rachel Vail, illus. Yumi Heo. 2005

Sometimes Katie loses her temper, and she uses her feet and her fists instead of words. When Katie is mad, she’s just not herself—she’s Bombaloo. Being Bombaloo is scary. Ages 3–8.

The Way I Feel, by Janan Cain. 2000 This book presents the vocabulary children need to understand and express their feelings. Emotions are identified by situation, images, facial expression, and use of color and text. Ages 4–8.

When Sophie Gets Angry—Really, Really Angry…, by Molly Bang. 1999

Everyone experiences anger and expresses it in different ways. Anger can be frightening for children. See what Sophie does when she gets angry. Ages 4–8.

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color, line, space, and perspective are evocative of the characters’ emotions, balance the story, and provide clues to help children make meaningful connections to the text, their experiences, and the larger world. These five books are exemplary in that they can increase children’s social-emotional literacy, encourage empathetic behavior, and promote the acceptance of others through identification with a literary character.

Strategies and activities

There are a number of strategies and literacy-based activities that families, teachers, and those who work with young children can employ to facilitate children’s discussion, oral language use, vocabulary development, and comprehension to enhance social-emotional literacy. When sharing books with children that focus on social-emotional literacy, five comprehension and vocabulary strategies are recommended. These strategies, useful for ages 3 through 8, include the use of Venn diagrams, open-mind portraits, emotion puzzles, emotion cubes, and feeling lines and shapes.

Venn diagram In early childhood classrooms Venn diagrams are often used to compare and contrast ideas or concepts. This graphic organizer can be used to strengthen children’s analytical skills and enhance comprehension. For instance, in Sometimes I’m Bombaloo, by Rachel Vail (2007), the main character, Katie Honors, and her alter ego—her temper, which she calls Bombaloo—have similarities and differences. Using the Venn diagram to compare and contrast characters such as these can serve as a springboard for discussion and reinforce the idea that even though children express their emotions in different ways (Katie shown on the left and Bombaloo on the right), they can still share the same feelings and stable qualities. These common attributes, displayed within the overlapping section of the circles, reassure children that strong emotions are experienced by everyone and do not define their identity (see “Sometimes I’m Bombaloo, Venn Diagram”).

Creating and discussing a Venn diagram is beneficial for young children when facilitated by a teacher as an oral language activity. Additional books that contain content well suited for this strategy include How to Take the Grrrr Out of Anger, by Elizabeth Verdick and Marjorie Lisovskis (2002), The Chocolate-Covered Cookie

Temper Tantrum, by Deborah Blumenthal (1999), and When I Feel Angry, by Cornelia Maude Spelman (2000).

Open-mind portrait An open-mind portrait is a handmade book created by children and teachers that describes the emotions of a book character. For example, after reading The Way I Feel, by Janan Cain (2000), the teacher draws an outline of the head and face of a character as the cover of a book. Next, the teacher places blank sheets of paper behind the book cover and then selects important events or quotes from the story that relate to a particular character to discuss with the children. The teacher reads each quote or event aloud to the children, asking them to think about what that character might be feeling at that particular juncture in the story. Acting as a scribe, the teacher records the children’s thoughts below each quote to illuminate the emotions the character is experiencing. (Older children can choose their own passages or quotes to illustrate feelings.) This activity promotes empathy and helps children see another’s point of view, identify with a character, and interpret another’s emotions. When using this strategy with young children, it is important for teachers to

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This Sometimes I’m Bombaloo Venn Diagram compares and contrasts Katie Honors and her alter ego—her temper, which she calls Bombaloo—to reveal their similarities and differences.

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discuss situations, actions, and events that evoke reactions from the range of human emotions that exist in everyone. Additional books that contain content appropriate for this strategy include It’s Hard to Be Five: Learning How to Work My Control Panel, by Jamie Lee Curtis (2004), The Recess Queen, by Alexis O’Neill (2002), and Cool Down and Work Through Anger, by Cheri J. Meiners (2010).

Emotion puzzles Emotion puzzles are created by a teacher to draw attention to the facial features associated with specific emotions, such as happiness, sorrow, and anger. This meaning-making strategy links language with the facial expressions of emotions, providing a visual model for young children. For instance, using How Are You Peeling? Foods With Moods, by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers (1999), children connect the puzzle pieces to create a single image of three faces expressing the same emotion. Additional books that contain a variety of emotive faces and content that work well with this strategy include Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day, by Jamie Lee Curtis (2007), The Way I Feel, by Janan Cain (2000), and Knuffle Bunny, by Mo Willems (2004).

Emotion cube An emotion cube displays six faces representing the feelings—embarrassed, angry, proud, happy, sad,

and nervous—associated with common emotions. Emotion cubes can be adapted and used with children of different ages. Young children can roll a die, identify a storybook character that experienced a similar emotion, and recall the details of the event that provoked the character’s emotion. Very young children can state an emotion such as sadness, and then replicate that emotion, using the cube as a guide to exaggerate their own facial features in a drawing or in a mirror to display that emotion. Children who lack the language to express emotions can match faces on the cube with corresponding language labels to learn a vocabulary for emotions.

The teacher draws faces appearing on the emotion cube with crayons to represent the range of emotions experienced by Sophie, the main character in When Sophie Gets Angry—Really, Really Angry…, by Molly Bang (1999). Additional books that contain a variety of emotive faces and content well suited for use with this strategy include My Face Book, by Star Bright Books (2011), So Many Feelings: Sign Language for Feelings and Emotions, by Dawn Babb Prochovnic (2012), and Feelings to Share From A to Z, by Todd and Peggy Snow (2007).

Feeling lines and shapes Feeling lines and shapes is an artistic strategy involving the use of similes or metaphors to connect colors and images with emotions. When a child experiences a

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strong emotion, the teacher encourages the child to compare the emotion to the way she—or a character in the story—feels, and then represent it, choosing from a variety of artistic media, such as crayon, paint, or collage. For example, in the picture book When Sophie Gets Angry, the metaphor “Sophie is a volcano, ready to explode” conveys Sophie’s feeling of anger. This strategy provides a developmentally appropriate and creative outlet for children to express their emotions, and can be easily adapted to meet individual interests. For example, children select the artistic materials and style they want to use to represent their emotion while imagining a metaphor or simile. Additional books that contain content appropriate for use with this strategy include Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst (1987), When I Feel Angry, by Cornelia Maude Spelman (2000), and On Monday When It Rained, by Cheryl Kachenmeister (2001).

Discussing and managing emotions

Reading high-quality literature with children can heighten their awareness of emotions, foster sensitivity to others’ feelings, encourage tolerance, promote empathetic behavior toward others, and reinforce moral development. Sharing books with young children can help families and teachers support children as they manage strong emotions in positive ways, thereby fostering resiliency and coping skills. High-quality picture books can provide added dimensions to children’s thoughts and feelings, offer insight, model coping mechanisms, and pose possible resolutions to challenges. Most important, books with engaging stories can validate children’s emotions, inviting discussion of personal issues and providing valuable personal insight for children experiencing emotional distress.

When children who are facing challenges read about others who experience and solve similar problems, they can identify with the characters, and perhaps learn about alternative solutions and coping mechanisms they can use in their own lives. Reading about others’ personal difficulties may sharpen children’s perception and understanding of others, even if they are not currently experiencing emotional distress.

Conclusion

Fostering social-emotional literacy in young children is important to their healthy growth and development. With support and guidance from parents, early childhood educators, and other caregivers, young children can begin to understand emotions, apply language to express themselves, and learn strategies for regulating their emotions. Picture books are ideal for assisting families and teachers in developing children’s social-emotional literacy, sensitivity, and self-regulation. When comprehension and vocabulary strategies are taught in conjunction with reading high- quality children’s literature, children make meaningful connections to the global messages of emotions. A good story combined with responsive and developmentally appropriate discussion can provide the opportunity for children to explore emotion-provoking conflicts and events that might mirror those emotions they or their friends routinely experience.

References

Day, M., & R. Parlakian. 2004. How Culture Shapes Social- Emotional Development: Implications for Practice in Infant– Family Programs. Washington, DC: ZERO TO THREE.

Denham, S.A. 2006. “Social-Emotional Competence as Support for School Readiness: What Is It and How Do We Assess It?” Early Education and Development 17 (1): 57–89.

Denham, S.A., K.A. Blair, E. DeMulder, J. Levitas, K. Sawyer, S. Auerbach-Major, & P. Queenan. 2003. “Preschool Emotional Competence: Pathway to Social Competence?” Child Development 74 (1): 238–56.

Denham, S.A., & R. Burton. 1996. “A Social-Emotional Intervention for At-Risk 4-Year-Olds.” Journal of School Psychology 34 (3): 225–45.

Emde, R.N. 1998. “Early Emotional Development: New Modes of Thinking for Research and Intervention.” Pediatric Round Table series. In New Perspectives in Early Emotional Development, ed. J.G. Warhol, 29–45. New Brunswick, NJ: Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute.

Epstein, A.S. 2007. The Intentional Teacher: Choosing the Best Strategies for Young Children’s Learning. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Epstein, A.S. 2009. Me, You, Us: Social-Emotional Learning in Preschool. Ypsilanti, MI: HighScope.

Goleman, D. 2006. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York: Bantam.

Harper, L.J., & S. Trostle-Brand. 2010. “More Alike Than Different: Promoting Respect Through Multicultural Books and Literacy Strategies.” Childhood Education 86 (4): 224–33.

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Hyson, M. 2004. The Emotional Development of Young Children: Building an Emotion-Centered Curriculum. 2nd ed. New York: Teachers College Press.

Kemple, K.M. 2004. Let’s Be Friends: Peer Competence and Social Inclusion in Early Childhood Programs. Early Childhood Education series. New York: Teachers College Press.

Kiefer, B.Z., & C.A. Tyson. 2009. Charlotte Huck’s Children’s Literature: A Brief Guide. Boston: McGraw Hill.

NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) & NAECS/SDE (National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education). 2002. Early Learning Standards: Creating the Conditions for Success. Joint position statement. www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/ file/positions/position_statement.pdf.

Riley, D., R.R. San Juan, J. Klinkner, & A. Ramminger. 2008. Social and Emotional Development: Connecting Science and Practice in Early Childhood Settings. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf.

Schiller, P. 2009. Seven Skills for School Success: Activities to Develop Social and Emotional Intelligence in Young Children. Beltsville, MD: Gryphon House.

Scott-Little, C., S.L. Kagan, & V.S. Frelow. 2006. “Conceptualization of Readiness and the Content of Early Learning Standards: The Intersection of Policy and Research?” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 21 (2): 153–73.

Shonkoff, J.P., & D.A. Phillips, eds. 2000. From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Trawick-Smith, J. 2013. Early Childhood Development: A Multicultural Perspective. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Willis, C.A., & P. Schiller. 2011. “Preschooler’s Social Skills Steer Life Success.” Young Children 66 (1): 42–49.

About the author Laurie J. Harper, PhD, is an associate professor of education at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. Laurie teaches child development, early childhood curriculum, and children’s literature for preservice teachers. Her research interests include early literacy development and using children’s literature to support children’s development, culture, and gender awareness. [email protected]

Photographs: pp. 80 and 84, © iStock; p. 83, courtesy of the author

Copyright © 2016 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. See Permissions and Reprints online at www.naeyc.org/yc/permissions.

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Share NAEYC With Families: families.naeyc.org Visit NAEYC’s For Families website for research-based tips and ideas on children’s learning to share with the families in your program! Print and hand out tips that meet your needs, post links on your school’s Facebook page or website, and add article links to your newsletter.

Here’s an example from families.naeyc.org!

Toys as Tools: Everyday Science Experiences By Peggy Ashbrook

Young children don't need highly specialized or expensive equipment to learn how to explore the natural world scientifi cally. Simple toys and tools can engage children as they explore natural phenomena in ways that will support their later science learning. Adults who allow children to play and work through small diffi culties by themselves support children as they build an understanding of how the world works. Resist the temptation to “fi x it” or “make it go faster” or “use it the right way,” and you will build your child’s self-confi dence and problem-solving ability. 1. Spinning Tops

Concept: Use these toys as tools to explore motion. How to support exploration: Ask your child open-ended questions (questions with more than a yes or no answer). How hard do you have to push each type of top before it begins to spin? Are light or heavy tops easier to spin? Are tall or short tops easier to spin? Can a top with a penny taped to it maintain a spin?

Read more at families.naeyc.org/learning-and-development/music-math-more/ toys-tools-everyday-science-experiences.

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