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Effective early childhood teachers recognize the value of developing children鈥檚 social skills to promote cooperation and collaboration. They help children learn to share, take turns, and express caring for others. In this article, we (the two authors) demonstrate how teachers can guide children to develop the social competence shown in the opening vignette. We share strategies for structuring paired learning to promote cooperation and build children鈥檚 social competence. We present these ideas through multiple vignettes based on our observations of numerous Spanish-English dual language practitioners in preschool through first grade classrooms. Although we concentrate on dual language settings, any teacher can implement these strategies to facilitate young children鈥檚 social skill development.

With over 20 years in the early childhood field, each of us is engaged in three major roles: (1) we prepare preservice teachers within a university setting for culturally efficacious work; (2) we research teachers鈥� daily practice within bilingual (Spanish-English) early childhood settings; and (3) we offer professional development, including coaching, on dual language instruction for teachers in preschool and elementary classrooms across the country. The majority of the teachers we work with are in programs that have Spanish-dominant and English-dominant children side by side learning content in two languages with the goals of bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism.

In these roles, we observe the variety of ways teachers in dual language classrooms organize their instruction to enhance children鈥檚 linguistic, academic, and social development. One crucial cooperative structure implemented in many classrooms is paired learning. Although an effective strategy, it can be challenging for children if teachers do not provide structure and guidance (Alan铆s 2018). Thus, our research has focused on the effective interactive strategies early childhood teachers use in dual language classrooms when pairing children for learning (Alan铆s 2011, 2013; Alan铆s & Arregu铆n-Anderson 2015).

When we share our research findings with educators through professional development, some frequently asked questions include:

• How can I get young children to learn with a partner if they don鈥檛 have the required social skills?
• How can I ask children to take turns if they are still learning to self-regulate their feelings and behaviors?
• How can I ask children to express their thoughts if they may not know how to put their thoughts into words?

Social competence and听paired learning

Social competence includes the social, emotional, and cognitive knowledge and skills children need to be effective in their interactions with others (Rose-Krasnor & Denham 2009). It encompasses an array of behaviors, such as interpersonal skills, self-regulation, planning, organizing, and decision making. When children willingly support and assist one another, they engage in cooperative activity鈥攁nd they demonstrate and boost their social competence.

To support children鈥檚 social learning, teachers should provide many opportunities for children to work and learn together. As a cooperative strategy, paired learning helps children become successful in their social interactions and is based on the following principles of sociocultural theory (Vygotsky 1978):

• Learning is social; to advance children鈥檚 knowledge, interaction with teachers and peers is important.
• Social development underlies all other areas of development (linguistic, cognitive, and emotional).
• Social interactions improve social competence.
• Children develop social competence through听
  social interaction.

Because learning is a social process, pairs provide a structure for learning in an enjoyable, relaxed setting. Children鈥檚 social development is supported by more competent others (including peers and teachers) through interactions within a social context. Paired learning lends itself to social interaction in which partners provide assistance, guidance, and direction through scaffolding and social construction of knowledge (Mooney 2000; Burman 2009).

How can teachers help children develop social skills?

In previous work, we discussed how teachers intentionally partner children based on their strengths (Alan铆s & Arreguin-Anderson 2015; Alan铆s 2018). These strengths include their language capabilities, their conceptual understandings, and their personalities. Pairing children heterogeneously allows students to learn by observing or participating with a peer鈥攖he more knowledgeable other (Vygotsky 1978). Partners can provide support if children are matched with a peer who is just a little bit above their current level of understanding, or zone of proximal development.

Within these heterogeneous partnerships, children are responsible for each other鈥檚 learning. This presumes that each child has the capability to teach and learn and that each child has something important to contribute. It also sends a strong message of high expectations for young learners. How the teacher structures the task, however, can support or hinder children鈥檚 success (Alan铆s 2018).

Young children come to school with varying levels of cooperative skills. Some children are already capable of compromising, taking turns, and listening to a partner, while others are still developing these skills. Some children may be reluctant to talk because their expressive language is still developing. Thus, in the following sections we highlight the significance of providing explicit modeling, focusing on one skill at a time, and creating multiple opportunities for children to practice these new skills. We also听remind teachers of the need to provide a variety of visual scaffolds for young children to 鈥渟ee鈥� what is expected of them.

Provide explicit modeling

Teacher modeling shows children what they are to do and helps children work together more effectively (Alan铆s 2018). Teachers can model the behavior they want to establish by demonstrating a specific activity and related expectations. While visiting Mrs. Kelly鈥檚 bilingual kindergarten class, we observed as she assembled the children on the carpet and asked them to watch while she presented a new center activity: matching picture cards to words. She slowly took cards out of a baggie and placed them in front of her. She showed children how to complete the activity as she talked them through it:

As the rest of the children watched, Mrs. Kelly walked Marco and Sandra through the process of taking turns while playing the game. She focused on turn taking and language use:

After Marco and Sandra modeled the game a couple of times for the whole class, Mrs. Kelly asked each pair of students to go to their tables while she distributed the game materials.

Taking the time to have a pair of students model for the class was a crucial step; it showed the children the expectations for language use and behavior during partner learning. It also allowed Mrs. Kelly to determine whether children understood the required behavior before she had them do the activity on their own (reducing the need for teacher mediation).

Some details to explain through modeling include听the following:

• Who goes first?
• How do we share the materials?
• Do we share a pencil? Paper?
• What do we say to each other?
• When should we take turns?
• Where do we place the materials once we finish with the activity?

Focus on one skill at a time

Teachers can help children identify exactly what they need to do by planning a structured activity to practice a specific skill. We observed an excellent example in Mr. Sanchez鈥檚 bilingual first-grade classroom during an English language activity. Mr. Sanchez sat his students on the carpet in front of him and asked if they liked having someone read to them. The children responded with a resounding 鈥淵es!鈥� Then Mr. Sanchez introduced partner reading:

Taking turns and sharing are examples of behaviors children use regularly, if encouraged to do so. By pairing children to read a book together, teachers create opportunities for children to practice early reading behaviors in an informal manner that benefits both partners. These activities听build specific social skills鈥攊n this case, turn taking鈥攁s they provide integrated learning opportunities for language and literacy.

Create opportunities for听collaborative interaction

Play is the dominant form of social activity in early childhood classrooms. Play and social learning have a complex relationship, with new learning occurring in the context of play and then practiced during subsequent play (Kostelnik et al. 2018). During play, children engage in complex social interactions as they develop roles to enact in their play and decide the details of what to play.

Sociodramatic play is one of the most common forms of play found in early childhood classrooms. As children negotiate and take on different roles related to the theme, pretend play facilitates interpersonal skills and improves children鈥檚 creativity and cognitive development (Axelrod 2014). Because children learn more easily in situations that are familiar to them, teachers can create centers with props from familiar settings, such as a bakery, a restaurant, or a local supermarket (Salinas-Gonzalez, Arregu铆n-Anderson,听
& Alan铆s 2017).

The process of directing, requesting, and coordinating efforts led to organized play and created a shared goal of making gingerbread cookies. Although Patricia (a native Spanish speaker) said very little during the play scenario, she participated with and understood her English-speaking classmates. Within the bakery center, Ms. Vogelpohl encouraged and facilitated social interactions so that all of the children engaged in roles that were comfortable for their level of linguistic and social development (Alan铆s & Arregu铆n-Anderson 2015).

While dramatic play is an important means of creating opportunities for children to interact, teachers sometimes have specific topics that they would like children to discuss in order to build language, vocabulary, and social skills. To achieve these goals, teachers may create more structured, playful activities. Although there is no prescribed time or age at which to introduce structured interactions, teachers can closely observe children鈥檚 levels of comfort and mastery of skills (such as turn taking and maintaining eye contact) to gradually involve them in more complex interactions. For example, across the hall from Ms. Vogelpohl, Mrs. Lara used musical partners to combine music, movement, and discussion.

The strategy of musical partners begins with children dancing while music plays. When the music stops children high-five the person closest to them and discuss a question or topic the teacher has provided. When the music starts up again, the children thank each other and dance around until the music stops. The process starts over, with children each high-fiving a new partner. This gets the children used to engaging with different partners in an enjoyable and stress-free environment. Reminding children to say thank you also encourages mutual respect.

The musical partners strategy creates opportunities for movement and for children to talk with each other about topics that connect to their interests and experiences, all while addressing specific academic objectives. Topics that easily add relevance to any lesson include children鈥檚 families or pets, favorite colors or holidays, and places children have visited. As with all structured activities, gradual exposure to collaborative tasks ensures successful participation in these types of interactive endeavors.

Create visual scaffolds

Visual scaffolds provide critical support as children acquire new skills. A visual representation of a concept serves as a tool to access ideas that may be abstract or complex, thus facilitating comprehension. Visual scaffolds include words, drawings, pictures, diagrams, and objects. A successful strategy using visual scaffolds that we observed was the creation of an anchor chart that provided cues for what working with a partner should look and sound like. An听anchor chart听is a teaching element developed with students that provides gentle reminders of expectations and routines. Teachers create these visuals as a class activity, with children contributing their own ideas. Effective anchor charts are visually appealing, clearly focused, and effectively use text and images to illustrate the key concept.

When we visited Mrs. Aguilera鈥檚 kindergarten class, she engaged in a discussion with the children to create an anchor chart for being a good partner:

The creation of the anchor chart enabled Mrs. Aguilera to hear children鈥檚 ideas as they constructed their own understandings of paired learning. Mrs. Aguilera placed the chart in an accessible location so that students could use it as a visual reminder when needed.

Another effective strategy we have observed is the use of sentence frames. It is often difficult for young children to organize their ideas into words, especially if they are doing so in their second language. Providing developmentally appropriate and linguistically accessible sentence frames helps children engage in structured conversations.

In this situation, the sentence frame helped children with the skill of asking and responding to a question. Although several children responded with one-word answers, the turn-and-talk strategy gave them an opportunity to hear their partners ask the question and to listen to their classmates respond to it. The next time Mrs. Vasquez asks her students to turn and talk, she could also provide a sentence frame for the reply, such as, 鈥淎 m铆 me gustan las manzanas听_____鈥� (I like the _____ apples). This enables children to practice the authentic use of new words and skills as they learn the reciprocal action of a conversation.

Teachers can post sentence frames on chart paper or on students鈥� desks so that children can refer to them when they need to. The following are some initial stems to get students started:

• What do you think will happen next? I think _______.
• Which story did you like? I liked _______.
• Who was your favorite character? My favorite character was _______.
• In my opinion, _______________. I agree with you/I disagree with you because_____________.

Conclusion

Young children鈥檚 social development requires intentional modeling from a teacher, opportunities to practice new skills, and scaffolding. When teachers structure paired learning effectively, it has the potential to develop language, content knowledge, and social skills (Arregu铆n-Anderson & Alan铆s 2017). A primary benefit for young children, however, is the power to develop competency in their social skills鈥攁 precursor to all other forms of learning (Riley & Jones 2010).

The teaching practices in these vignettes reflect language-rich classrooms where all children are encouraged to develop their social competence in comfortable and engaging settings. These social structures are important and valuable because all learners need opportunities to interact with each other as part of their learning experiences.

References

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