McKay School of Education > Project SEEL > Implement > SEEL Principles

Principles of SEEL

Overview of SEEL Principles

SEEL principles guide teacher planning and presentation as well as student responding and interaction. Because SEEL is not a rigid program, teachers are most effective when they internalize the SEEL principles and incorporate them into their teaching according to their own strengths and style. The goal of SEEL is to combine the best one does with additional methods and ideas to add to the good things students are already receiving. SEEL aims to accommodate and build upon teachers' own style of teaching, just as teachers accommodate and build upon their students' styles of learning.

This page defines the SEEL principles. Learning to incorporate these principles into instruction can be enhanced by the mentoring of a SEEL certified professional developer. Please click here to see the description of SEEL Professional Development.

The five SEEL principles are as follows:

Orchestrate interactive instructional conversations with students during activities.

Assure that instruction is explicit.

Make instruction response intense.

Engage children through playfulness.

Emphasize meaning through adopting themes, applying students' interests, and varying contexts.

Applying SEEL principles to the SEEL Curriculum includes some of those "a ha" experiences teachers occassionally have as they search for better ways to teach literacy skills. Through application of SEEL principles and methods teachers create opportunities for students to respond in ways that are meaningful, engaging and memorable.

The following descriptions of SEEL principles include a definition, a list of goals for the principle, and suggestions for implementing the principle in classroom teaching.

Principle 1: Orchestrate interactive instructional conversations.

Instructional conversations feel informal and natural, yet each has a specific instructional objective. Learning is the goal, but a conversation that engages students interactively is the means. The effectiveness of an instructional conversation depends on its goal focus: in the case of SEEL, a literacy target. The conversation topic might shift based on student responses, but the purpose of the conversation is not diverted. No one, especially the teacher, dominates because the learning objective is only achieved if every student is given enough response opportunities to enable him or her to learn the target.

Instructional Conversations Applied to SEEL

Goal of Instructional Conversations

Suggestions for Conducting Interactive Instructional Conversations

Use interactive instructional conversations to

1. engage students in an interesting interchange utilizing the target skills,

2. encourage students to expand on responses to emphasize meaning, and
create a positive environment where all children feel free to speak.

The instructional conversation is often combined with playful practice.

Effective instructional conversations

use questions and comments to elicit student responses,
acknowledge student ideas,
ask questions inviting students to share their ideas, and
acknowledge, incorporate, and build on student ideas in a variety of ways.

Building students' ideas into the conversation enhances meaning for them. Teachers must discipline themselves, however, to avoid being distracted--to continue practicing the literacy target and involving every student.

Example of Conversation Components with the -at Word Family Ending

As the instructional conversation proceeds and children are responding to teacher prompts, they are practicing the new skills. For example, a conversation practicing the rhyme ending -at might include some of the following:

Students repeating the -at ending and some -at words after the teacher, possibly with some stretching and blending involved
Students offering their own rhymes using -at: hat, fat, cat, sat, mat, rat etc.
Students making comments that indicate that they are experiencing meaning from the conversation

Phonemic awareness of the -at word ending prepares the students for word analysis with the target.

An excerpt of a teacher conversation about the literacy target -at follows:

Teacher:	I have a fat cat. Do any of you have a fat cat?
Michael:	I have a fat cat.
Teacher:	Michael has a fat cat! How do you play with your fat cat, Michael?
Michael:	We run and play together.
Teacher:	My fat cat likes to run, just like Michael's. When he runs too fast, my fat cat goes splat! What do you think of that?
Susan:	He goes splat because he's fat!
Teacher:	My cat is too fat to chase a rat.
Lucy:	My thin cat can chase a rat.

Conversation Questions

The teacher might ask questions about hats to practice the -at rhyme ending:

When do we wear hats?
What do people do with hats?
How does a person choose a hat to wear?
How do you decide which hat you want to wear?

The teacher might show a picture of a cat wearing a hat.

This cat has a hat. What does the hat say about this cat?
Is he a policeman's cat? A firehouse cat?
What kind of hat would you make for your cat?

Principle 2: Assure that instruction is explicit.

Definition, Goals, and Suggestions

Explicit instruction delivers content in ways that follow instructional design principles. The method consists of a pattern of supports. Traditional definitions of explicit instruction are applied within SEEL curriculm.

Explicit instruction includes setting a purpose for learning and guiding the student to success as the student eventually responds independently and generalizes the new learning.

Setting the Stage: The importance of learning a finite skill is framed for the student in the importance of learning to be literate. Emphasizing the importance of the skill and showing its relevance to the students help set the stage for explicit instruction.

Conspicuous Strategies: For teachers addressing early childhood learners in SEEL instruction, conspicuous refers to stating and modeling the target skill directly and explicitly, then demonsrating to the students how to make responses when practicing the new skill.

Mediated Scaffolding: Steps, tasks, materials, teacher comments, playful actions, drama, and other forms of student involvement come together to reduce complexity, optimize response making, and engage the learner. Scaffolding is gradually removed until students achieve independence with the literacy target.

Review: Effective review, performed throughout the school day in a variety of classroom settings, results in generalization of learning gained in one context to application in others. This removes the common tendency of young learners to limit a new area of knowledge or skill to a certain context.

Background Knowledge: Every learner brings prior knowledge to each new instructional event. Effective instruction discovers and builds on this knowledge. SEEL consciously invites students to contribute their experience and interests to the instructional conversation, increasing the personal meaning and motivation they find in the lesson.

Goal of Explicit Instruction

Suggestions for Making Instruction Explicit

The goal of explicit instruction is to maximize teaching and learning time. When the instruction is explicit,

students are focused on practicing the literacy target,

distraction is limited, and

the environment is optimal for learning.

Clearly communicate target skills.

Provide purposeful repetition. Each SEEL teaching moment should include a restatement and demonstration of the target skills.

Be sure that opportunities have been provided for every student to respond with sufficient repetition that each receives the practice he or she needs. Instruction is effectively explicit when students are able to demonstrate their knowledge in diverse contexts and settings.

Perspectives on Explicit

To the teacher, explicit has several meanings:

In the research-based, sequenced curriculum, literacy targets are clear as to sequence and scope.
The curriculum and activities supporting the literacy targets are planned to produce skill and capacity, not just to “cover.”
The sequence and combination of targets promoting both skills and meaning are developmentally appropriate.
Essential skills are not overlooked, skipped, or missed.

To the student, explicit provides important benefits:

Students know what skill they are learning and why they are engaged in particular conversations and activities.
Students see and hear modeling of the target skill.
Students have a basis for knowing when they have learned the target skill.
Students are able to bring something they have already learned to the new instruction that will enable learning.

Principle 3: Make instruction response intense.

Definition, Goals, and Suggestions

Response intense is making sure that time is not wasted with too much teacher talk or too much irrelevant student activity. Applying this concept means focusing the students on tasks and actions that provide maximum practice with the literacy targets within a defined time frame. The number of responses in a given time is inadequate by itself; response to intervention principles also apply. This means that student responding must result in learning, or the instruction must be revised for greater effectiveness.

Goal of Response Intense SEEL Instruction

Suggestions for Creating Instruction that is Response Intense

Instruction is response intense when the number of repetition opportunities and the feedback each student receives are optimal.

SEEL teachers are conscious of the number of response opportunities each student receives within the time dedicated to a literacy target.

A socially constructed instructional conversation should focus on providing each student the number of opportunities to practice the target skill that that individual needs to put the target into long-term memory. This will vary with students, and the teacher needs to know the students well enough to make adaptations.

Additional response opportunities can be provided by revisiting literacy targets throughout the day: during centers, snack time, transitions (e.g., lining up for lunch), and start or end of the day.

SEEL teachers observe students and adjust response opportunities to needs that become apparent.

Making instruction interactive and playful extends the time for response making by extending the time students are willing to focus on the literacy skill.

Contexts to Increase Response Intensity

Response intensity can be achieved by returning to the target in multiple contexts throughout the day:

Large group sessions are ideal for introducing the target and getting the students involved in public conversations. Students who tend to catch on quickly may be called on early in order to provide additional examples for the others. Some children need to hear a number of responses from others before they are ready to respond themselves.

Transitions, times for confusion or acting out in many classrooms, can be used constructively to review targets. Perhaps each student could give another "M word" as a "code" to get in line, pick up supplies, move to another area of the room, or run an errand.

Begining and ending of day are important times for review and reinforcement. For example, to practice the /c/ sound, the teacher might tease students about putting on their coats, caps, colorful scarves, cute mittens, and cool backpacks as they put their things away when they arrive or put them back on when they are ready to leave.

Small group work allows the teacher to adapt to students' specific needs. At times groups can be structured homogeneously so that the teacher can provide more intensive help to a group of students who need it and provide more advanced projects and activities for a group of students who are ready for them. At other times groups can be heterogeneous, allowing more advanced students to energize and intensify the practice of students who need extra review.

Snack time is a casual, relaxing time when students are ready for playful conversations--especially if they can be "just a little" silly. If crackers, chips, cookies, carrots, candy, or cup cakes are involved, a natural development would be to have a conversation about favorite foods that start with C. A song from Sesame Street in which Cookie Monster sings "Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C" could be easily adapted to a number of C snacks as the children name them.

Principle 4: Engage and motivate children through playfulness and interactivity.

Teachers learn to play and converse using target literacy skills. If children find that they can have fun and receive social reinforcement by participating with the skills, they will be less likely to engage in distractive playfulness, which is counterproductive.

Goal of Playfulness in SEEL Instruction

Suggestions for Creating Playful Instruction

Play is the "work" of young children. Their motivation, attention, and focus are attracted and sustained by playful activities.

Engagement and motivation come from

the enthusiasm and energy of the teacher,

hands-on, concrete activities that focus on the literacy target,

variety,

literacy targets linked to books, themes and shared experiences that make practice of the target meaningful,

practice that is playful and meaningful,

success experiences.

Engage and motivate children through

expressing a range of emotions (curiosity, amazement, disgust, delight, sadness, anger, fear, etc.),

using hands-on, concrete activities,

creating energetic interactions,

varying presentation strategies, and

providing supports so children feel successful and confident.

Principle 5: Make instruction meaningful for every child.

Goal of Making Instruction Meaningful

Suggestions for Creating Meaningful Instruction

Relate content to what children know and have experienced. When instruction is embedded in a context that is meaningful for students, learning is significantly enhanced.

Meaningful instruction comes from

creating hands-on shared experiences for reading, writing, and talking about such activities as a nature walk, a classroom visitor, a science experiment, or a field trip;
relating content to what children already know (seasons, holidays, weather, local events);
using authentic social contexts (preparing a snack, looking for something that is lost);
relating content to children’s personal experiences (family and community life, vacations, sports teams, music or dance lessons, embarrassing experinces etc.).