Social-Emotional Learning and Development • TKCalifornia (2024)

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Promote social-emotional development in your TK classroom by embedding your teaching practices

Research shows—and you have probably seen firsthand—how important it is for children to feel secure, valued, and cared about, and to develop strong social-emotional skills. As a Transitional Kindergarten (TK) teacher, you have the opportunity to play a vital role in children’s lives during a period of critical social-emotional growth.

Social-emotional development includes children’s experience, expression, and management of emotions; pro-social behaviors; classroom behaviors (e.g., paying attention); self-confidence; and their ability to establish positive and rewarding relationships with others. Current research shows that self-regulation of emotions and behavior is one of the strongest predictors of academic success and leads to success in the workplace, in social settings, and in life for all young school-aged children. Confident learners that stem from your classroom will have the foundational tools they need for continued success in school and beyond.

Elements of Social-Emotional Development

Social-emotional development consists of three main areas of children’s self-regulation:

1. Acting: Behaving in socially appropriate ways and ways that foster learning.
2. Feeling: Understanding others’ emotions and regulation of one’s own emotions.
3. Thinking: Regulating attention and thoughts.

Acting

Examples of behavioral self-regulation include:

• Interacting with teachers and peers in positive ways (e.g., sharing, taking turns).
• Inhibiting negative impulses (e.g., hitting, pushing, yelling).
• Solving problems with increasing independence.
• Negotiating solutions to conflicts with peers.

Feeling

Examples of emotional understanding and self-regulation include:

• Accurately identifying emotions in themselves and others.
• Managing strong emotions such as excitement, anger, frustration, and distress.
• Being empathic and understanding others’ perspectives.

Thinking

Examples of cognitive self-regulation include:

• Focusing attention on a lesson or an activity.
• Screening distractions.
• Planning steps or strategies to complete a task or activity.

Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS)™ for Pre-K

Teachers’ abilities to support social-emotional functioning in the classroom are central to effective classroom practice. The Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS)™ for Pre-K describes measures of Emotional Support in a classroom climate that encourage positive social-emotional development and learning.

Establishing a Positive Learning Climate

• Teachers and students enjoy warm, supportive relationships with one another.
• There are frequent displays of positive affect by the teacher.
• Teachers and students frequently share positive verbal or physical communication.
• Teachers and students consistently demonstrate respect for one another.
• Teachers and students do not display strong negative affect and only rarely, if ever, display mild negativity.
• Teachers do not yell or make threats to establish control.
• Teachers and students are not sarcastic or disrespectful.
• There are no instances of negativity between teachers and students.

Teacher Sensitivity

• Teachers are consistently aware of students who need extra support.
• Teachers are consistently responsive to students and match their support to the students’ needs and abilities.
• Teachers are consistently effective at addressing students’ problems and concerns.
• The students are comfortable seeking support from, sharing their ideas with, and responding freely to teachers.
• Teachers are responsive to children who might need additional time to respond, respond in a different language, or need to access a quiet area in the classroom.

Regard for Student Perspectives

• Teachers are flexible in their plans, go along with student ideas, and organize instruction around students’ interest.
• Teachers provide consistent support for student autonomy and leadership.
• There are many opportunities for student talk and expression.
• The students have freedom of movement and placement during activities.

Social-Emotional Development on the Standards Continuum

TK allows you the gift of time to move your students along the standards continuum, preparing them for a successful Kindergarten year ahead. As there are no set standards for TK, WestEd and the California Department of Education’s (CDE) Child Development Division developed a publication that aligns the Preschool Learning Foundations with the Kindergarten Common Core State Standards to help guide developmentally appropriate TK instruction. The alignment of the Preschool Learning Foundations and the Kindergarten Common Core State Standards illustrates the developmental progression of TK-aged students.

• The Kindergarten content standards related to social-emotional development are included as part of the health domain, under the mental, emotional, and social health strand, rather than as a separate domain.
• Some, but not all, of the content in the preschool domain of Social-Emotional Development aligns with the mental, emotional, and social health strand of the Kindergarten Health domain.

Role of the Teacher

You can promote social-emotional development in your classroom by embedding your teaching practices throughout the day. Remaining sensitive to children’s needs helps them feel secure and confident, and acts as a model for effective social behavior. For example, asking questions to help children find a solution to a social conflict helps them develop problem-solving skills. Reading a story and engaging children in a conversation about a socially challenging situation can also serve as a lesson in handling social problems in real-life as well as in literacy.

Be Attentive to Each Child’s Needs

Be attentive to the social-emotional skills and needs of each unique child so you can respond with lessons and interventions tailored to help every child develop their skills. Your attention and presence as a teacher can be a pillar of confidence for children who are dealing with stressful life circ*mstances. Letting children know that you are there to help will build children’s trust that you are a source of guidance. Keep in mind that children who are Dual Language Learners (DLLs) may need additional support to feel secure and self-assured in a learning environment that is responsive to their needs.

Early Emotional Experiences Matter

Recognize that the emotional domain is foundational to all other developmental domains. If children start school in an emotionally supportive environment, they will acquire the love of learning necessary for success in all areas of the school. “As young children develop, their early emotional experiences literally become embedded in the architecture of their brains,” therefore great care should be given to children’s emotional needs, according to the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. If you seek children’s opinions, allow children to initiate activities, and are flexible about responding to children’s ideas, you’ll build children’s feelings that they are competent and respected, and at the same time motivate their desire to learn.

Positive and Consistent Relationships

Social-emotional development is supported through positive and consistent relationships among teachers and children. Try going beyond expectations of compliance with school rules, and support social-emotional development by crafting a positive, emotionally supportive climate in the classroom that skillfully connects new experiences with children’s unique home experiences. According to the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, “Children who develop warm, positive relationships with their [TK] teachers are more excited about learning, more positive about coming to school, more self-confident, and achieve more in the classroom.”

Children are more likely to develop positive relationships when teachers:

• Model appropriate social behaviors.
• Provide opportunities for them to develop new social-emotional skills.
• Give explicit guidance.
• Offer a curriculum that is engaging and relevant to children’s lives and cultures.
• Engage with parents in a two-way relationship to build children’s social-emotional skills.
• Reflect an ethic of caring and nurturing.

Specific examples of productive teacher behaviors include:

• Showing respect and valuing children’s cultural and language backgrounds.
• Modeling the polite use of language and encouraging children to imitate your behavior.
• Encouraging empathic thinking with questions such as, “Why do you think they are crying?”
• Promoting children’s confidence and development of new skills by engaging them in problem-solving, for example by asking, “Can you think of a way to help you remember to wait for your turn?”
• Attending to signs of personal trauma and providing additional support to children who are experiencing unusual stress in their lives.

Seven Social-Emotional Teaching Strategies

​​The teaching strategies below give concrete approaches for promoting social-emotional development in your classroom. They are designed to guide developmentally appropriate TK instruction, moving your students along a continuum of learning by bridging the Preschool Learning Foundations with the Kindergarten Common Core.

Strategy 1: Relationships and Social Interactions with Peers
Strategy 2: Social and Emotional Understanding
Strategy 3: Conflict Negotiation (Problem Solving)
Strategy 4: Child Regulates Emotions and Behaviors
Strategy 5: Engagement and Persistence
Strategy 6: Responsible Conduct
Strategy 7: Integrated Approaches for English Language Development and Family Engagement

Click the button below to download the teaching strategies (PDF).

Seven Social-Emotional Teaching Strategies