“Connecting to themselves and the world”: Engaging young children in read-alouds with social-emotional learning

As educators, we anticipated the social-emotional learning (SEL) of the children from the neighboring community would be greatly impacted due to the lack of social interaction necessary for human development during COVID. As literacy experts, we thought we could support these children through read-alouds focused on SEL. Our goal was to provide children the opportunity to participate in read-alouds of multicultural texts that incorporated SEL content and measured changes in their SEL development and vocabulary. We utilized the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework, which categorizes SEL into five competencies or domains, and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy to guide our research. We used a convergent parallel mixedmethod design in this pilot study in which 20 children from a community afterschool center and three adult volunteers participated. We found no statistical significance between administrations in children’s SEL as measured by the SEL web-based assessment, yet there was a statistically significant difference in SEL vocabulary scores between administrations. Supporting vocabulary scores, we identified four major themes: instructional practices, development of social-emotional learning, volunteers’ personal highlights, and challenges. This study has the potential to impact curriculum used in school and afterschool programs and could possibly make a positive impact on both socialemotional growth and vocabulary.