How do we select the right book to teach SEL skills, competencies, and values that will guide our students through academic, social, and emotional development and challenges? While no one text can or should do it all, how can we be strategic in building a collection of books and read-alouds that explore your school’s SEL framework?
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is a process for developing cognitive, social, and emotional skills and competencies essential to success in school, work, home, and community. Learn more about SEL from The Ecological Approaches to Social Emotional Learning (EASEL) Laboratory at Harvard University and its Explore SEL tool to discover a range of SEL frameworks available for schools.
We’re excited to announce the launch of our new Toolkit for Building a Diverse Library for evaluating a collection of books based on popular SEL themes to support educators’ SEL teaching. This tool is designed to showcase how educators can use the texts in their current classroom or school library to address objectives aligned with their school’s SEL framework or curriculum.
For more ideas about supporting social emotional learning using diverse books, check out the Lee and Low Social Emotional Learning Diverse Book List for Grades PreK-8 and the accompanying webinar, Using Diverse Books to Support Social and Emotional Learning . Lee and Low’s Classroom Library Questionnaire can also aid your thinking in diversifying your entire classroom library.
We’d love to hear from you! Contact Senior Literacy Manager, Katie Potter, at kpotter@leeandlow.com to learn about our Social and Emotional Learning Book Collection and options to customize it for your students and program needs.
