Module 8: Promoting Emotional Literacy and Empathy

Pre-learning assignment:

  1. Read Enhancing Emotional Vocabulary in Young Children, Gail Joseph and Phillip Strain, The Center on Social Emotional Foundations for Early Learning:

This article is about teaching children to recognize emotions in themselves and others, label those feelings, and respond appropriately to their feelings and the feelings of others. The article discusses situations in a preschool classroom and how those situations can be used to enhance the children’s emotional vocabulary and empathy. Included in the article are activities to help children recognize feelings, a list of feeling words to help teachers expand children’s’ vocabulary, and some suggested books that target feelings.

Respond to the questions below:

  • How might you use information from this article to plan lessons around emotional literacy and developing empathy?
  • What is the “key concept” of this article?
  • Describe the teacher’s role in helping children develop emotional literacy. How can the teacher help parents support the development of emotional literacy in their children?

Be prepared to discuss the pre-learning activities with your colleagues at the upcoming face-to-face session on Emotional Literacy and Empathy

  1. Review the Instructional Practices for Developing Emotional Literacy and Empathy Teachers/StaffChecklist. Self-assess: Where are you with each of the instructional practices? Do you implement each practice almost always? Occasionally? Not yet? Reflect on which practice(s) you wish to improve in the current or upcoming school year.
  2. Select an instructional practice from the self-assessment that you implement ‘almost always.’ Describe, in writing, a strategy you use to implement the practice. Be prepared to share the strategy in the face-to-face session.

30 minute review of pre-learning assignment:

  1. Select one instructional practice that you rated yourself ‘almost always’ and share with the group.
  2. Select one instructional practice that you rated yourself ‘occasionally’ and share with the group a new strategy that will help you become more cognizant about implementing that instructional strategy.
  3. Share the key idea you gained from the article

Effective Teacher Practices for Providing Targeted Social Emotional Supports: Promoting Emotional Literacy and Empathy

90 Minute Face to Face Session

Contact hours: 2 contact hours (90 minute session plus 30 minute pre-learning activity review)

Trainer Handouts

  • Article for pre learning activity, “Enhancing Emotional Vocabulary in Young Children”
  • Instructional Practices to Build Emotional Literacy and Empathy
  • iPoints for Teachers for Building Emotional Literacy and Empathy
  • iPoints for Administrators for Building Emotional Literacy and Empathy
  • NC Professional Teacher Standards – at this link:
  • NC Foundations for Early Learning and Development – at this link:

Slide 1: Introduction to Modules

This is thefirst session in a series of modules that addresses the second level of the pyramid. It is the“main course” – the “meat” of thetraining. Over the next several sessions, we will discuss ways to intentionally teach social-emotional skills related to identifying and expressing emotions, recognizing and responding to emotions of others, and understanding feelings. While all children benefit from these types of strategies, children from families with multiple risk factors benefit most of all from these strategies.

Slide 2:Welcome to today’s session on “Promoting Emotional Literacy and Empathy”.

Emotional Literacy includes: the ability to read facial expressions, non-verbal cues, language and body cues in one’s self and others, the ability to interpret these cues as to the cause and intent of the action, and being able to determine one’s own emotional reaction to these cues in themselves and others. Emotional literacy includes being able to generate solutions based on the emotional cues of others, being able to make a decision and act on the decision in regards to how it affects their own emotions and the emotions and actions of others.

Slide 3: Pre-learning Activity on articleRead Enhancing Emotional Vocabulary in Young Children, Gail Joseph and Phillip Strain, The Center on Social Emotional Foundations for Early Learning:

This article is about teaching children to recognize emotions in themselves and others, label those feelings, and respond appropriately to their feelings and the feelings of others. The article discusses situations in a preschool classroom and how those situations can be used to enhance the children’s emotional vocabulary and empathy. Included in the article are activities to help children recognize feelings, a list of feeling words to help teachers expand children’s’ vocabulary, and some suggested books that target feelings.

Respond to the questions below:

  • How might you use information from this article to plan lessons around emotional literacy and developing empathy?
  • What is the “key concept” of this article?
  • Describe the teacher’s role in helping children develop emotional literacy. How can the teacher help parents support the development of emotional literacy in their children?

Slide 4: Objectives

Participants will:

  • Understand and effectively implement instructional practices that help children buildemotional literacy and empathy
  • Understand the importance of involving families in practices that help children build emotional literacy and empathy

Slide 5:Objectives continued

Participants will:

  • Understand the importance of using data to support children in developingemotional literacy and empathy
  • Understand how to articulate the relationship between targeted instructional practices,NCFoundations for Early Learning and Development, and the NC Professional Teaching Standards

With this session we hope to help you understand the importance of helping children build emotional literacy and empathy skills, withtheir families, and with all teaching staff in your classroom and school.We’ll focus on instructional practices that help children recognize and appropriately respond to their feelings and actions and the feelings and actions of others

Slide6: SEFELPyramid Overview

Remember that the first tierof the Social-Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (SEFEL) Pyramid Model addresses Nurturing and Supportive Environments and Responsive Relationships. Tier I strategies help you ensure a healthy social-emotional environment for all children. High quality supportive environments promote positive outcomes for all children. The second tier of the pyramid promotes targeted social emotional supports for individual children or groups of children that need an intentionalapproach in order to learn social skills. This session will focus on Tier II concepts and strategies. Tier III is intensive intervention for those children who are still exhibiting challenging behaviors after all supports at Tier I and II are in place on a consistent basis. These children will need intensive intervention strategies and documentation of behavior in order to make a plan for intervention and support for the child and the teacher.

Tier II deals with Emotional Literacy and Empathy, Friendships, and Feelings. When children cannot read emotional cues or display empathy for others in the classroom, they have difficulty interacting with others, forming relationships, and making and maintaining friends.

Slide 7: Activity-Movement-the same feelings can look different on different people’s faces. (10 min)

Let’s start by thinking about feelings. What are your feelings today? Suppose different feelings couldbe thought of as different colors. What color are you today and why?

[If needed, provide an example: I’m pink because I’m happy.]

You’ll see that there are posters of different colors up in the room. Go to the color you feel today. When everyone has found a group, begin telling one another why you chose that color.

[Trainer tip: the purpose of this activity is to show that the same emotion may look different on different people.]

Give participants adequate time to move around the room and talk. After about 10 minutes, get the groups’ attention. Go to each group and ask a spokesperson to describe the feelings they associated with each of the colors. Wrap up by summarizing ‘themes’ associated with the colors, such as intensity. Prompt as needed to talk about whether feelings have different colors according to intensity of the feeling (example: irritated is a muted orange, frustrated is neon orange)?

How might you use this activity with children?

[Prompt as needed to talk about adding music and movement to the activity with children.]

Slide 8: What is emotional literacy?

Emotional literacy is the ability to recognize, understand, and appropriately express emotions. We typically think of literacy as the ability to read and write. Emotional literacy is being able to perceive (read) and communicate (write) emotions. It is the alphabet, grammar, and vocabulary of our emotional lives. It is the way we respond to life using a variety of emotions…anger, fear, loneliness, etc. Emotions influence our actions and our thoughts and have a critical impact on our relationships.

Slide 9: Why is emotional literacy important?

Research from a survey, “Public School Parents and The Promise of Public Education’, conducted by Hart Research Associates in 2013 with parents of children enrolled in public schools indicated that parents wanted schools to do four things to help their children prepare to succeed in college and their careers. The results of the survey indicated the top four things parents wanted from their child’s school. Sixty-eight percent of parents wanted the schools to improve their child’s knowledge and critical thinking abilities.Eighty percent of the parents wanted the schools to provide their child with a safe learning environment.Sixty-one percent of parents surveyed indicated that they wanted the schools to educatetheir children about their rights and responsibilities as citizens of a democracy.Fifty-four percent of parents wanted the schoolsto address their child’s social, emotional, and health needs.(Hart Research Associates, 2013)

We also know that children who don’t learn to use emotional language have a hard time labeling their own feelings and the feelings of others. Misreading the emotions of others can result in inappropriate actions that can then lead to challenging behavior or social isolation. An example of misreading emotions could beif someone’s face is red, another person might see that as the person being hot and offer them a cool drink. But maybe their face is red because they are embarrassed about something. If a child always looks sad or lonely, other children may take his/her emotions to mean they do not want to play.

Slide 10: Activity on Typical Development for Emotional Literacy and Empathy

Let’s reviewtypical development of emotional literacy and empathy skills in children.

In your handouts you have a worksheet entitled “Typical Development for Emotional Literacy and Empathy”. Each box contains a description of a child’s emotional development. Ask participants to cut the sections apart for each description and put the cut the sections into the four pieces. Now ask them to rearrange thesections in order according to the following age categories: Two month old, Toddler, 3-4 year old, 5-6 year old. Ask a volunteer to share their developmental sequence.

[Have the ages written on chart paper or a slide for reference. The answer key is in the handout section of this module]

Slide 11: Instructional practices checklist

In your handouts you have a checklist of instructional practices (Attachment B) for building emotional literacy and empathy with children, staff, and families. We’ve adapted the checklists from CSEFEL and the University of Iowa. The checklist items are part of the Teaching Pyramid Observation Tool (TPOT) – with which you may be familiar if you are familiar with CSEFEL. CSEFEL conducted extensive research and found these are practices have proven to be effective for helping children learn emotional and social skills. In other words, they are evidence-based practices. Research supports their effectiveness.

You’ll see a checklist for Instructional Practices Observed in Teaching Practices for Promoting Emotional Literacy and Empathy with items intended for use by teachers and other instructional staff as a self-assessment. You have another handout, Instruction Practices Observed in Teaching Practices for Promoting Emotional Literacy and Empathy for Administrators, with the same items intended for use by an observer. The observer might be a coach or mentor, a peer, supervisor, or evaluator.

Slide12: Video- Teaching Emotional Literacy and Empathy Video 1 - Amy –Cabarrus County in large group setting

This classroom has a B-K certified teacher and 2 f(Hart Research Associates, 2013)ull time teacher assistants. There are a total of 16 students in the classroom; which includes 6 EC children (1 Autistic student, and 5 developmentally delayed students), No Title I students, 3 NC Pre K students and 10 private pay students.

Now let’s watch Amy using a puppet, Murray,during a groupactivity to introduce a new vocabularyword around an emotion, “worried.” Watch how she introduces the new vocabulary word.

As you are watching the video – see if you can identify strategies from the Instructional Practices checklist.

[Show video.]

Which instructional practices did you observe?

[Trainer notes: some examples are listed below, the participants may include others:

IP-1 The teacher will use naturally occurring opportunities across the day to teach emotional literacy and empathy skills.

IP-2 The teacher will use a variety of materials (books, puppets, games etc.) in group settings (both large and small) to teach emotional literacy and empathy skills.

IP-3 The teacher will use and model expected behaviors while describing the behavior.

IP-5 The teacher will include instruction in recognizing feelings in self and others in her daily lesson planusing a variety of materials (books, puppets, games etc.)

IP-6 The teacher will discuss emotions in the classroom including using increasing complex vocabulary ..Such as mad, angry, frustrated, etc. (Teacher discussed worried)]

What strategies did you observe that were evidences of each of the instructional practices on the checklists?

[Prompt as needed to include:

  • Modeling with the teacher assistant
  • Using a situation that was familiar to the children
  • Giving clues to look at the face, “how can you tell he is worried?”
  • Allowing children and teacher assistant to develop solutions to the problem.]

Let’s take a few minutes at your tables to discuss what additional strategies the teacher could have added to her interactions with children in this scenario to maximize the opportunity for recognizing and responding to emotions in self and others. What mightbe the next step (strategies) to further the children’s understanding of “worried”? We’ll come back together in a few minutes to talk about it as a large group.

[Write these two questions on a flip chart paper or put them on a slide. Encourage small groups to talk together. Give adequate wait time.]

Let’s come back together. What other strategies did this table come up with? What are next steps? Are these instructional practices that are represented on the checklist?

[Allow participants to respond table by table. If you are watching the time, just pick a few tables. Prompt if necessary to look at the Instructional Practices Checklist and identify the strategies that support those practices.]

Slide 13: Teaching Standards

Teaching standards can be found at:

Now refer to the handout on teaching standards and put yourself in the shoes of the principal who is observing Amy’sclassroom for evaluation purposes. Which teaching standard/s did the teacher demonstrate during the interactions you observed?

[Encourage small groups to talk among them. Give adequate wait time.]

What teaching standard did you observe? How was the teaching standard demonstrated?

Standard 3: Teachers know the content they teach

  • Teachers align instruction with the NC Standard Course of Study
  • Teachers make instruction relevant to their students

Standard 4: Teachers Facilitate Learning for their students

  • Teachers know the ways that learning takes place, and they know the appropriate levels of intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development of their students.
  • Teachers plan instruction appropriate for their students
  • Teachers use a variety of instructional methods

Why is it important to be able to articulate the teaching standard the teacher is demonstrating?

[Prompt as needed to talk about our own roles in educating others about preschool instruction.]

We have talked about the intentional instructional practicesAmy used for building emotional literacy and empathy skills in the video clip. We have seen how these practices can be embedded into the regular routine of the day. Now, let’s re-focus our attention to the children’s behaviors in relation to development of these skills in children developing according to age expectations.

Slide 14: Picture of Foundations

Refer to your Foundations documentfor Emotional and Social Development pages 51-64. Look at the goals for Learning aboutFeelings, page 61.

[Offer to show the video again. If participants say they can identify the children’s goals from watching the scenario the first time, proceed with the activity. If participants have difficulty, go ahead and show the video again.]

What goals did you see children working toward?

[Prompt as needed to talk about:

Emotional and Social Development….page 61

  • ESD-6q Use a larger vocabulary for talking about different feelings. Page 61
  • ESD-6r Give reasons for their feelings that may include thoughts and beliefs as well as outside events (“I’m happy because I wanted to win and I did.”).
  • ESD-6m Use a variety of words or signs to express and manage feelings more clearly.]

Slide 15: iPoints

iPoints are ‘Instructional Practices Observed in Teaching Standards.’ Remove the set in your handouts (Attachment C). Refer to theinstructional practices that we’ve discussed thus far in this session. This document correlates the instructional practice with the early learning standard (Foundations) and the NC teaching standards.Take a few moments to review this document. Discuss how this document will be a useful resource tool for teachers.