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Valeria Marin

Brian Cahoon
Senior Capstone
3/28/2016
How do Elementary School Teachers help students develop social skills?
As adolescents and adults, we understand the basics when it comes to manners and
thinking social thinking. But students that range from ages six to thirteen are still developing the
concept of the skills. A parent can easily teach their children manners and certain everyday rules.
However, there are several situations in which the student may lack in certain areas. That's why
for elementary teachers, it is important to teach students a variety of social while teaching. All
theses social skills are built into one type of education named character education. Character
educations is an educational approach towards whole child educational, service learning, socialemotional learning, and civic education (Character, n.d.).
Many students throughout elementary deal with certain situations that happen in their
lives. Whether it's being shy or having a learning disability, when these children go to school,
they are put into an environment where they sometimes don't know how to act According to the
National Center for to act. Technology Innovation (NCTI) and Center for Implementing
Technology in Education (CITEd), students with or without learning disabilities, struggle with
reading nonverbal cues and engaging in social interactions tend to have some difficulty with
interactions such as learning and non learning disabilities, risk for school failure, and ADHD
(NCTI, CITEd, 2015). In addition, young students are less likely to succeed in school if they are
frequently fighting or shouting, are unable to control their behavior, pay attention or follow
directions, or are unable to cooperate with others (Raver, Knitze, 2002). There are various

reasons why a student would be struggling socially. That is why Elementary teachers are able to
assist in their certain areas that they struggle in.
Elementary teachers are able to teach in various ways when it comes to generalizing
social skills to students. For example, using a natural interaction between a student and adult in
order to practice a skill or discuss how the child felt or if the outcome was negative or positive
after a social interaction as occurred (NCTI, CITEd, 2015). Other ways that teachers socially
help children is that they figure out a student's certain interest and present it to the classroom in
order to have other classmates realize their certain interest. This is able to increase the status of a
rejected or isolates child (Lavoie, 2015). According to Rick Lavoie, playing board games or card
games effectively can monitor social development in a classroom. These activities use a variety
of social skills, such as voice modulation, taking turns, sportsmanship and dealing with
competition (Lavoie, 2015). The training that teachers do has a massive impact towards how the
student will act in the future.Keeping this long-term education, Character Education, can lead to
progression for the future generation.
Character education happens to be a learning process that has student and adults n a
school community to understand, care about and act on core values.These values tend to be
respect, justice, civic virtue, citizenship and responsibility for self and others (U.S, Department
of Education, 2005).
A certain way explaining Character education is by looking at itsa triangle model that has three
sets of factor that influence the amount a human character develops (Johnson, Hanson, 2015).
According to Johnson, the left side deals with values, examples such as role models, legends and
heroes, stories and narratives and reinforcement (Johnson and Hanson, 2015). The right side
deals with the thought process that includes examples like problem solving to help make choices,

have the ability to reflect on an experience and learn from it and make a framework on decisions
that seem hard (Johnson, Hanson, 2105). To teacher it isn't a struggle to promote Character
education since there are multiple ways to show it. For example, sponsoring an after-school
reading club for students the endures their moral lessons and id age appropriate is a great way of
showing Character education to students (Center of the Advancements of Ethics & Character,
2004). In addition, promoting simple things like not allowing unkindness of any kind in the
classroom or not permitting swearing or obscene language in the classroom or at school are other
examples of promoting Character education (Center of the Advancements of Ethics & Character,
2004).
In conclusion, Elementary teachers have variety of resources and ways in order to
develop the social skills of any students. Children with disabilities or who are lonely tend to be
the students that need more development with their social skills. There are multiple way a
teacher is able to help a student get out of their comfort zone or make new friends. In addition,
using Character education is a huge advantage in helping the the student develop their social
skills. Not only is Character education used for Elementary teachers, but parents are also able to
use it.

References

Center or the Advancement of Ethics & Character. "100 Ways To Promote Character Education."
National Association of Independent Schools. 22 Dec. 2004. Web.

<http://www.nais.org/Articles/Pages/100-Ways-To-Promote-Character-Education.aspx>.
Johnson, Steve, and Kirk Hanson. "Teaching Values in School."
Character Education Markkula Center For Applied Ethics. Santa Clara University,
30 Sept. 2015. Web. <https://www.scu.edu/character/resources/introduction-to-charactereducation/>.
Lavoie, Rick. "The Teacher's Role in Developing Social Skills." LD Online. 2015. Web.
<http://www.ldonline.org/article/6170/>.
NCTI, and CITEd. "Practicing Social Skills: How to Teach Your Student Social Interactions."
LD Online. 2015. Web. <http://www.ldonline.org/article/21025/>.
Raver, C. Cybele, and Jane Knitze. Promoting the Emotional Well-Being of Children and Families.
National Center for Children in Poverty, 2002. Print.
"What Is Character Education." Character.org. Web.
<http://character.org/key-topics/what-is-character-education/>.

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