Lee High School

Social Skills Needed for Elementary Students

Final Draft

Valeria Marin
Senior Capstone
Brian Cahoon
April 18, 2016

Valeria Marin
Brian Cahoon
Senior Capstone

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4/18/2016
Social Skills Needed for Elementary Students
As adolescents and adults, we understand the basics when it comes to manners and social
thinking. However, students that range from ages six to thirteen are still developing the concept of
these skills. A parent can easily teach their children manners and certain everyday rules but there
are several situations in which the student may lack in certain areas. That's why for elementary
teachers, it is important to recognize which students would be targeted to struggle the most with
developing their social skills. In addition, knowing what activities or ways to develop social skills
is a major key for elementary teachers. Some ways students learn socially is through programs
within character education, which is an approach towards whole child education, service learning,
social-emotional learning, and civic education (Character, n.d.). With this, elementary teachers
are given a variety of ways how to teach students social skills that would be needed for their
future.
Many students throughout elementary deal with certain situations that happen in their
lives. Whether its 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 Technology Innovation (NCTI) and Center for Implementing Technology in
Education (CITEd), students with or without learning disabilities, struggle with reading nonverbal
cues and engage in social interactions that tend to have some difficulty with interactions such as
learning and non-learning disabilities, which can be a risk for school failure (NCTI, CITEd, 2015).
Also, young students are less likely to succeed in school if they are frequently fighting or shouting;
are unable to control their behavior; dont pay attention or follow directions, or are unable to
cooperate with others (Raver, Knitze, 2002). There are various reasons why a student would be

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struggling socially. That is why elementary teachers are able to assist student in the certain areas
that they struggle in.
Elementary teachers are able to teach in various ways when it comes to generalizing social
skills to student. For example, using a natural interaction between a student and adult is a way to
practice a skill or after a social interaction has occured, discuss how the child felt about it and if
they had a positive or negative outcome. (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 isolated child (Lavoie, 2015). According to Rick Lavoie, playing board games or card
games can effectively 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). This happens to be only a portion of how teachers are developing skills. The
training that teachers do has a massive impact towards how the student will act in the future.
Character education happens to be a learning process that has students and adults in 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 in explaining character education is by looking at it as a triangle
model. It has three sets of factors 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 a teacher, it isn't a struggle to promote

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character education since there are multiple ways to show it. For example, sponsoring an afterschool reading club for students that endures their moral lessons and is 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). Character education has a variety of programs that are able to assist children that
need help with their social skills.
Specifically, there are a couple programs that aim directly in helping with social-emotional
skills and behavioral skills such as Second Step and the PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions
and Supports) program. The Second Step program, specifically with fifth grade students, focuses
on having them learn skills to deal with gossip and peer pressure (Committee for Children, 2016).
The PBIS program is able to let teachers show their students what behavior is expected in the
classroom. Interviewing Olivia Alkema, elementary science teacher at Godfrey-Lee Public
Schools, she touched base on how her school uses the PBIS program:
Positive Behavior Interventions Supports, It just kind of goes through a list of expectations
that the kids are supposed to follow in different areas of the school. They stay on green and
then if they have an infraction they are moved to yellow, have another infraction you move
to red and at red they have to write up a report for their behavior and that goes home to
parents (Alkema, O).
These certain programs have been helping not only students, but teachers in the development of
social and emotional skills.

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In conclusion, elementary teachers have a 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 ways 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 student develop their social skills. Not only is
character education used for elementary teachers, but parents are also able to use it. There are
multiple ways

Works Cited

Alkema, Olivia. "What Is PBIS and How Is It Used?" Personal interview. 14 Apr. 2016.
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>.

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"Grade 5 Confident and Responsible." Committee for Children. Committee for Children,
2016. Web. <http://www.cfchildren.org/second-step/elementary/grade-5>.
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/>.