Helping Others One Book at a Time

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) focuses on skills that can increase students’ chances of success in school and throughout adulthood. One competency of SEL is social awareness, which is the focus of this article. Social awareness assists children in demonstrating concern for others as well as showing compassion. Children’s literature can serve as a conduit to increase students’ social awareness as characters demonstrate ways to help others. This article provides examples of children’s literature that focus on social awareness and includes discussion questions that educators can use during interactive read-alouds.