8: The Value of Healing Families: Connecting Early Literacy With Social-Emotional Learning

Supporting the development of social and emotional skills for our youngest learners has been a topic of interest in child development. Feeling positive and confident in the early years is critical for all young children. A pandemic combined with traumatic experiences for young children and adults have taken the awareness of teachers to fully understand more and move forward with early literacy strategies by establishing trusting relationships connecting with social-emotional learning. This chapter will draw attention on the significance of supporting families connecting to early literacy with social-emotional development. A section will address social-emotional literacy and provide families with a literacy-rich home environment to support social-emotional learning. A variety of strategies will be explored to investigate social-emotional learning including play and learning stories, floor play, snack time, and an early literacy program focusing on kindness and pro-social skills with children’s literature. Social-emotional literacy contributes to the development of young children’s emotional and social competence by promoting trusting relationships at home and school to increase family engagement and creates opportunities to encourage resiliency for young children’s healthy social and emotional wellbeing.