Health education offers a natural curricular home for important life skills and ways students can optimize physical, social, and emotional health. Although many schools have implemented social and emotional learning (SEL), health education provides a broader framework by encompassing the connections between physical and emotional health and the…

Although social-emotional learning is associated with long-term success in school and careers, it is often a missing link in U.S. public education. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the need for social-emotional supports for children. In this time of crisis, educators have also sought new ways to make connections and reimagined how students…

This report summarizes results from the Georgia's Pre-K Longitudinal Study Third-Grade Report. The study followed a representative sample of children (n=1,169) from their pre-k experience (2013-2014) through the third grade (2017-2018). Study components include: (1) Standardized child assessments that measure skills across learning domains. By…

In this article Megan Mathisen, a teacher of deaf and hard of hearing children at St. Anne Grade School in St. Anne, Illinois, describes her work with two boys in second grade and one boy in fifth grade who at the beginning of the school year had reading and language delays. After working with them, her second grade boys are now on grade level and…

In this "FastFacts," a state's Department of Education requests information from the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) on how the research defines skills in social-emotional development, approaches to learning, and executive function, to inform planned revisions to the early childhood indicators of progress for children…

Research shows that a child's social and behavioral skills affect the development of cognitive and physical abilities. Set students on a path to success and have fun doing it with this activity-packed second edition of "Wanna Play". The authors provide hundreds of activities that help children learn how to behave appropriately and make friends.…

The authors advocate that every primary grade program needs a carefully planned social-emotional component. All children--those who enter first or second grade with an ability to control their emotions and make friends and those for whom these skills are more difficult--benefit from intentional teaching in this area. Some school systems adopt a…

The authors describe a five-day, literature-based thematic unit for second-graders on positive character traits, such as friendship, respect, perseverance, honesty, and cooperation, and how four books by Janell Cannon are integral to children's learning. (The authors offer suggestions throughout for adapting the unit for younger children.) They…

In 2006, educators at St. Francis School in Austin, Texas, teamed up with researchers from the Gender and Racial Attitudes Lab at the University of Texas at Austin to examine ways to counteract gender bullying among young children. The project team tested a traditional multicultural technique--using literature to challenge gender…