Teaching socialization skills

9 Ways to Teach Social Skills in Your Classroom

Research and experience has told us that having social skills is essential for success in life. Inclusive teachers have always taught, provided and reinforced the use of good social skills in order to include and accommodate for the wide range of students in the classroom. 

Essentially, inclusive classrooms are representations of the real world where people of all backgrounds and abilities co-exsist. In fact, there are school disctricts with curriculum specifically for social and emotional development. 

Here are some ways in which you can create a more inclusive classroom and support social skill development in your students: 

1.  Model manners

If you expect your students to learn and display good social skills, then you need to lead by example. A teacher's welcoming and positive attitude sets the tone of behaivor between the students. They learn how to intereact with one another and value individuals. For example, teachers who expect students to use "inside voices" shouldn't be yelling at the class to get their attention. In other words, practice what you preach. 

2.  Assign classroom jobs

Assigning classroom jobs to students provides opportunties to demonstrate responsibility, teamwork and leadership. Jobs such as handing out papers, taking attendance, and being a line-leader can highlight a student's strengths and in turn, build confidence. It also helps alleviate your workload! Teachers often rotate class jobs on a weekly or monthly basis, ensuring that every student has an opportunity to participate. Check out this list of classroom jobs for some ideas!

3.  Role-play social situations

As any teacher knows, it's important to not only teach the students a concept or lesson but then give them a chance to practice what they have learned. For example, if we teach students how to multiply, then we often provide a worksheet or activity for the students to show us their understanding of mulitiplication. The same holds true for teaching social skills. We need to provide students with opportunities to learn and practice their social skills. An effective method of practice is through role-playing. Teachers can provide structured scenarios in which the students can act out and offer immediate feedback. For more information on how to set-up and support effective role-playing in your classroom have a look at this resource from Learn Alberta.

4.  Pen-pals

For years, I arranged for my students to become pen-pals with kids from another school. This activity was a favorite of mine on many different academic levels; most importantly it taught students how to demonstrate social skills through written communication. Particularly valuable for introverted personalities, writing letters gave students time to collect their thoughts. It levelled the playing field for students who had special needs or were non-verbal. I was also able to provide structured sentence frames in which the kids held polite conversation with their pen-pal. Setting up a pen-pal program in your classroom takes some preparation before the letter writing begins. You want to ensure that students have guidelines for content and personal safety. This article, Pen Pals in the 21st Century, from Edutopia will give you some ideas!

5. Large and small group activities

In addition to the academic benefits, large and small group activities can give students an opportunity to develop social skills such as teamwork, goal-setting and responsibility. Students are often assigned roles to uphold within the group such as Reporter, Scribe, or Time-Keeper. Sometimes these groups are self-determined and sometimes they are pre-arranged. Used selectively, group work can also help quieter students connect with others, appeals to extroverts, and reinforces respectful behavior. Examples of large group activities are group discussions, group projects and games. Smaller group activities can be used for more detailed assignments or activities. For suggestions on how to use grouping within your classroom, check out this article, Instructional Grouping in the Classroom.

6.  Big buddies

We know that learning to interact with peers is a very important social skill. It is just as important to learn how to interact with others who may be younger or older. The Big Buddy system is a great way for students to learn how to communicate with and respect different age groups. Often an older class will pair up with a younger class for an art project, reading time or games.  Again, this type of activity needs to be pre-planned and carefully designed with student's strengths and interests in mind. Usually, classroom teachers meet ahead of time to create pairings of students and to prepare a structured activity. There is also time set aside for the teacher to set guidelines for interaction and ideas for conversation topics. Entire schools have also implemented buddy programs to enrich their student's lives. Here is an article that offers tips on how to start a reading buddy program.

7.  Class stories

There are dozens of stories for kids that teach social skills in direct or inadvertant ways. Find strategies to incoporate these stories in your class programs. You can set aside some time each day to read-aloud a story to the entire class or use a story to teach a lesson. Better yet, have your class write their own stories with characters who display certain character traits. 

8.  Class meeting

Class Meetings are a wonderful way to teach students how to be diplomatic, show leadership, solve problems and take responsibility. They are usually held weekly and are a time for students to discuss current classroom events and issues. Successful and productive meetings involve discussions centered around classroom concerns and not individual problems. In addition, it reinforces the value that each person brings to the class. Before a class meeting, teachers can provide the students with group guidelines for behavior, prompts, and sentence frames to facilitate meaningful conversation. Here is a great article, Class Meetings: A Democratic Approach to Classroom Management, from Education World that describes the purpose and attributes of a class meeting.

9. Explicit instruction

Finally, teachers can carve out a time in their curriculum to directly teach social skills to their students. Research-based programs such as Second Step provide teachers and schools with explicit lessons for social development. These programs can provide schools and classrooms with a common language, set of behavior expectations, and goals for the future. I have used programs such as Second Step in my classrooms with much success!

Nicole Eredics is an educator who specializes in the inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education classroom. She draws upon her years of experience as a full inclusion teacher to write, speak, and consult on the topic of inclusive education to various national and international organizations. She specializes in giving practical and easy-to-use solutions for inclusion. Nicole is creator of The Inclusive Class blog and author of a new guidebook for teachers and parents called, Inclusion in Action: Practical Strategies to Modify Your Curriculum. For more information about Nicole and all her work, visit her website. 

Related Topics

Social and Emotional Learning

How to Teach Social Skills, Step by Step

Seating students together is not enough to ensure teamwork. Many kids have very little idea how to interact appropriately with their classmates. They simply lack the social skills needed to perform the most basic cooperative learning tasks. Lack of social skills is probably the biggest factor contributing to lack of academic success in teams. Fortunately, social skills can be taught just like academic skills. If you use a systematic approach like the one described below, you’ll find that your students CAN learn how to interact appropriately and become productive team members.

Listen to the Podcast: How to Teach Social Skills for Working Together
For more information about how to teach social skills, listen to Episode 7 of my Inspired Teaching Made Easy podcast below.

Six Step Process for Teaching Social Skills

1. Discuss the Need for Social Skills
Before you can help students improve their social skills, they need to understand why these skills are important. You might begin by asking your students to think about problems they may have experienced when working in groups, such as team members not listening to each other or not taking turns. Explain that most of these problems are caused by poor “social skills,” sometimes known as “people skills.” You might even mention that sometimes adults need to work on their social skills, too! Brainstorm a list of social skills that might make it easier for students to work together in teams. If they can’t think of any social skills for working together, share some of the suggestions from the list below.

2. Select a Social Skill
Even though your students may need to work on several different social skills, it’s best to focus on just one skill at a time. You can start with the skill you feel is most important, or you can let your class decide which skill they need to work on at a given time. I like to start with “Praising,” which might also be stated as “Showing Appreciation,” because when kids master this skill, all of the other skills are easier to learn.

3. Teach the Social Skill
Step 3 is to teach the skill explicitly so that your students know exactly what to do and what to say in order to master the social skill. For this part of the lesson, you can use the Working Together Skills T-chart below by projecting it on a whiteboard or drawing it on anchor chart paper.

Write the name of the social skill in the box at the top of the Working Together Skills chart. Then ask your students to help you brainstorm what they might do and what they might say when demonstrating the social skill. Write what they might DO under the Looks Like heading because this is what the skill looks like when it is demonstrated. Write the words they might SAY under the Sounds Like heading because this is what the skill might sound like to someone who is observing the activity.

Examples for the social skill of Praising:
Looks Like: Thumbs up, Clapping, Smiling
Sounds Like: Terrific! I knew you could do it! Way to go! I like the way you…

4. Practice the Skill
After you complete the Working Together Skills chart with your students,  it’s important to have them practice the skill right away by participating in a structured cooperative learning activity. For example, if you taught Active Listening as the social skill, you might follow up with a team discussion activity in which students take turns answering questions or sharing ideas around the team. Here a a few suggestions for cooperative learning structures you can use to practice specific social skills:

Social Skills and Cooperative Learning Structures

Social Skills	Structures for Practice*
Active Listening	Roundrobin, Think-Pair-Share, Mix-Freeze-Pair
Praising	Rallytable, Roundtable, Pairs Check, Showdown
Taking Turns	Rallytable, Pairs Check, Roundtable
Using Quiet Voices	Think-Pair-Share, Numbered Heads Together, Showdown
Staying on Task	Rallytable, Roundtable, Pairs Check, Showdown, Mix-N-Match
Helping or Coaching	Rallytable, Pairs Check, Showdown, Mix-N-Match
Using Names	Mix-N-Match, Mix-Freeze-Pair, Showdown
* For more information about these cooperative learning structures, check out Dr. Spencer Kagan’s book, Cooperative Learning.

5. Pause and Reflect
Sometime during the practice activity, use an attention signal to stop the class. Ask them to think about how they’ve been using the social skill. If you have observed teams or individuals doing a good job with the skill, share your observations with the class. Challenge students to continue to work on their use of the social skill as they complete the activity. Refer to your Working Together Skills T-chart if students have forgotten what the skill Looks Like and Sounds Like.

6. Review and Reflect
At the end of the activity, reflect again on how well the social skills were used. Take a few minutes to discuss the positive interactions that were happening, and aspects of the social skill that still need work. This is a also a perfect opportunity for personal journal writing and reflections. Consider these writing prompts:

• How well was the social skill being used on your team? What specific examples do you remember?
• How did you personally use the social skill? What did you do and/or say? To whom?
• How might you improve in using this skill next time?

By the way, it’s not necessary to follow all six steps every time you teach a new social skill. The most important elements are explicitly teaching of the skill and immediately following the instruction with a cooperative activity to practice the skill. The reflection steps are important and should be included as often as possible, too.

Modification for Younger Students
Younger students or special needs students could benefit from watching an excellent video created by Model Me Kids called Time for School. This video shows students exactly how to perform specific social skills. Even if you don’t use the video with your students, you might be interested in viewing it yourself to see how social skills can be broken down into steps and taught. If the video is appropriate for your students, they could watch it before completing the Working Together Skills chart above.

Fundamentals of socialization of schoolchildren: socialization at school

What is the socialization of children at school

Some parents and even teachers equate the socialization and development of schoolchildren with communication with each other. But this is a deeper and more multifaceted concept.

Socialization involves communication with people of different ages, races, professions and social status.

To socialize, a child must acquire the skills to interact with different people in different situations. In addition, socialization is the assimilation of a certain system of knowledge, norms and values ​​that allow one to function as a full member of society.

The socialization of children at school is often quite one-sided. The fact is that for eleven years a schoolchild spends most of the day in the company of the same children, interacts with the same teachers, is within the walls of the same building.

It is more correct to consider school as a part of socialization, but not an obligatory item.

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Schoolchildren's socialization factors

A factor is an environment in which socialization takes place. The traditional school is one option. But there are others.

Simply put, the factors answer the question " where is the child socialized?".

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Family

The child interacts with the closest relatives — mother, father, brothers and sisters. Communication with distant relatives - aunts, uncles and others is also counted.

Basic household skills, the ability to resolve conflicts, build a dialogue are laid in the family. How the child behaves depends on the behavior of adults. The younger ones always copy the older ones. It is important to remember this when you want to yell or spank a child, quarrel with your spouse or quarrel with a saleswoman in a store.

Street

Children, especially preschoolers and primary school children, still spend a lot of time outdoors - they are encouraged to take a walk at least once a day. In the yard and on playgrounds, many situations of interaction with other children and their parents arise - and in this way the foundations of socialization are also laid. The child learns to resolve conflicts and find a common language.

Internet

In adolescence, a child, as a rule, begins to actively use the Internet. Without access to the Internet, it is difficult to keep in touch with classmates and study successfully.

The peculiarities of the socialization of schoolchildren on the Internet are the anonymity of the Web, on the one hand, and the boundlessness of information and opportunities, on the other. Here you can chat with anyone from the other side of the world - but it is important to remember that it is easy to impersonate anyone on the Internet.

Children learn critical thinking, acquire netiquette skills and learn about what is not available in the real environment. For example, they travel on Google maps or watch a video lecture from Harvard.

Circles and activities

The lion's share of the socialization of students at school falls on additional sections. Here, children learn to interact in a team that unites a common cause. Sections and circles of interest are important for the socialization of a child who studies outside of school. Extra activities help the homeschooler to make friends, keep in touch and participate in the life of society.

Means of socialization of schoolchildren

Means are the means by which socialization takes place. " What is used to immerse a child in society? How does a child learn a system of knowledge, norms and values?

Household skills

First of all, the ability to serve oneself is laid - to eat, wash, comb your hair, brush your teeth, tie your shoelaces, clean the apartment. The older the child, the more freedom and independence he is entitled to. But not only in the "Wishlist" like walking with friends until late, but also in housework - go to the store or walk the dog.

Elements of spiritual culture

Books, films, monuments, museum exhibits, songs and series - all this introduces the child to the system of values ​​accepted in society. In the process of socialization, school students recognize themselves in the characters of works, find answers to exciting questions, learn to think and reflect, analyze the behavior of characters in situations similar to their own experience.

Education

The level of education in the country is an important condition for the socialization of schoolchildren. The quality of education determines how competitive and full-fledged member of society the child will grow up. In settlements without access to a full-fledged education, the process of socialization is disrupted - the child learns a limited and closed system of values, not being able to develop outside of this framework.

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Communication in the early stages of development

There are cases in science when children grew up in conditions of extreme social isolation and were brought up by animals. Scientists have found that people who lived in isolation from society for the first 3. 5-6 years of life will no longer be able to master the human language, walk straight, meaningfully communicate with other people. This demonstrates how important the early years of a child's life are for a child's development. The way adults communicate with a child directly affects the process of his socialization.

Methods of encouragement and punishment

Methods of upbringing play an important role in the socialization of younger students.

Encouragement is a method that stimulates the development of a child. It gives a much stronger effect than punishment. Encouragement causes positive emotions, contributes to the formation of self-esteem, discipline, responsibility. For successful socialization, it is important that the student is more often praised than scolded.

What to do if the child studies at home

The opinion that a child at home is deprived of socialization, while in a traditional school children are socialized to the fullest, is erroneous. As we found out, the socialization of a student's personality is the assimilation of a certain system of values ​​and norms during interaction with people of different ages, nationalities, and professions.

In other words, socialization is the whole of life. In order to integrate into society without problems, it is enough for a child in family education to interact with his family, go to circles and sections, walk with friends on the playground and in the yard, visit cultural places, and travel. Just live and get new experience!

why homeschoolers should not worry about socialization

What is socialization

In the dictionary, socialization is defined as “the process of assimilation by an individual of patterns of behavior, psychological attitudes, social norms and values, knowledge, skills that allow him to successfully function in society.” But the French sociologist Emile Durkheim defined socialization as "humanization" under the influence of education, "the impact of the generation of adults on the generation of the young. "

Unlike a school where teacher recruitment is predetermined, family education provides choice. Was the coach in the section too tough? Let's move on to another. Tutor not strong enough? We are looking for a new one.

Sociologists divide the process into two stages: primary socialization - from birth to maturity and secondary - already in adult working life. The most important step is the first. It is in childhood that a child gets acquainted with values, absorbs culture and expands the circle of his contacts. As a rule, this stage occurs in the family under the influence of close adults.

Each of us was a teenager and knows that socialization is a non-linear process. One day, a junior high school student turns into a person who is looking for himself and experimenting with social norms. Some get pierced and shave their heads, others go further and steal beer from a stall. Normally, by the end of adolescence, adventures are a thing of the past, and young people return “to their roots”: they bring garbage to the nearest bin, keep their word and relax in the company of like-minded people, and not those whose approval is desperately sought.

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The “problem” of socialization in family education

Socialization becomes a problem when it is confused with communication. Some parents believe that children at school communicate with their peers and thereby acquire good social skills. However, the modern mass school implies communication in an artificially created team. She does not provide communication skills with adults, with people of different ages and views. Namely, these skills are necessary in the natural living environment. After all, after graduating from school and university, a person does not live exclusively among peers.

Socialization is 90% influence of the family, close circle, and only 10% is the experience of communicating with other people.

If it is customary in the family to read before going to bed, to cross the road only on a zebra crossing, and to invite educated non-drinkers to visit, the child will learn these norms. But if dad gets behind the wheel without a license, mom retells gossip from work at dinner, and grandmother’s TV does not stop, you should not expect miracles from the school.

The notion that homeschooled children lack social interaction is based on misconceptions about family education and the families that choose it.

Homeschoolers are not hermits! Parents often communicate with acquaintances and friends, and children attend hobby groups and studios. Children have enough opportunities to communicate with both adults and peers in a variety of situations. A somewhat smaller number of permanent contacts is fully compensated by their quality.

The social skills of homeschoolers

In 1986, European sociologists studied the behavior of homeschoolers and then compared the results with data on their school peers. In almost all aspects of social interaction, the researchers found no significant differences, with the exception of one. Children who studied at home were less dependent on the group influence of their peers.

Modern psychologists confirm the idea that the process of socialization has little to do with being in a school community. One of the key indicators of a child's ability to interact socially is the level of self-esteem.

American sociologists conducted a study that covered more than two hundred children receiving family education. The results are very interesting. It turned out that most of these children have more stable self-esteem than their peers in school. Only 10% of the subjects had a level of self-esteem below average.

And one more interesting scientific research about socialization in family education. Thomas Smedley from Radford University (Virginia, USA) defended his thesis on "The socialization of children receiving family education." Smedley conducted a comparative assessment of the social maturity of twenty homeschooled children and thirteen schoolchildren. The children were of approximately the same age and background. The study assessed the ability to communicate, the level of socialization and the ability to serve themselves in everyday life.

Homeschoolers were found to be more mature. According to the general indicator of social maturity, they surpassed schoolchildren by 57%.

Smedley came to the following conclusion: in the public school system there is a horizontal socialization of children, which is temporary in nature and based on conformism in relation to their closest peers; parents who give their children home education aim at their vertical socialization, aimed at acquiring responsibility, the ability to serve society and maturity.

Where can a homeschooler communicate with peers

So, the problem of socialization in family education in the true sense of the word does not exist. The social skills of homeschoolers are in some ways superior to ordinary schoolchildren. Studies show that children in family education depend less on the opinions of others, are more independent and respect themselves more.

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