SEEL Implementation—Teacher Development

Intonation

Use intonation to express emotions and make the text come to life. Emphasize the literacy target with your voice.

Shared Laughter

The teacher and the students should be laughing and smiling together.

Exaggerated Interactions/Spectacles

Create interesting actions to comment on; offer options for ways to act on the materials (e.g., “accidentally” spill water while you poor it into a cup).

Facial Expressions

Come alive for the students. This is like putting on a show. You are the performer.

Balanced Adult with Student Talk

Have conversations with the students while you teach, rather than you doing all the talking. This can be done by making comments, expressing emotion, offering choices or options, and asking questions to know what the child is feeling and thinking.

Engagement

Provide interesting materials and actively involve the students.

Emotional Connection

Connect emotionally with the students by:

• Creating an emotional appeal; making positive statements; capitalizing on a range of ‘played’ emotions.

• Mirroring the emotion of the students (reflect or take on their feelings—surprise, confusion, delight, etc.).

• Encourage students as they participate and interact with each other.

Responsiveness

Respond to the students' expressions of emotion (e.g., joy, pleasure, excitement, sadness, frustration). Acknowledge and elaborate their contributions.

Dance

Children love to get up off the floor and dance. Dancing involves four parts that are easy to remember, because dancing is the B-E-S-T!

Body: When dancing, it’s important to include the entire body. This includes moving arms, legs, fingers, toes, head, body trunk, everything! It involves using locomotive movements (e.g. walk, run, hop, jump, skip, slip, gallop, leap) and moving your body into different shapes (e.g. curved, twisted, big, little).

Energy: Changing up the energy of the dance maintains children's interest and is just plain fun. This includes smooth/sharp, strong/weak, and sudden/flowing movements.

Space: Children love using lots of space while they dance. Try mixing it up by dancing low, middle, or high in the air. You can also change the direction, size, and pathway of the dance.

Time: Change the time of the dance by changing the rhythm or beat of the dance. You can dance fast or slow while you change the duration, sequence, and pattern of the dance.

Music

Music is a great way to keep children involved and engaged in the activity while they learn different literacy targets. There are four basic elements of music that can be altered:

1. Tempo (Rhythm and Beat): change the time or speed, clap the words, emphasize the underlying pulse/beat of the song

2. Pitch: use high/low tones in a sound pattern

3. Dynamics: change volume or relative loudness or softness of sound

4. Texture: use a layering of instruments/voices to create a thin or full feeling

Drama

By having the students act out characters or use different scripted literacy targets, they are given the opportunity to use the literacy targets themselves in a natural, playful way. There are six basic elements that are included in drama performances. These elements can be altered, emphasized, or ignored while teaching literacy targets.

1. Actor/Characters

2. Space: where the action happens

3. Audience: views action and sometimes interacts

4. Plot/Conflict: sequence of events set in motion by conflict

5. Setting: time and place for action in a specific space

6. Mood: feeling created by setting (lighting, music, pace of speaking, etc.)

Art

Art offers yet another way of teaching literacy targets to children. There are countless art activities that can be used in activities, but here are just a few elements that can be targeted:

1. Line: horizontal/vertical, long/short

2. Shape: height and width arrangement; geometric (circle, square, triangle, rectangle); organic (natural shapes), symbolic (letters/numbers)

3. Color: hue=color names; primary/secondary; warm/cool; value (light or dark)

4. Space: area taken up by object (+ or – space), overlapping

5. Texture: the way something feels or looks like it would feel (bumpy/smooth, soft/rough)

6. Form: 3D (height, width, and depth), sphere, pyramid, or cubed