Students in the classroom lack social skills for many reasons. Just to name a few it can be a result of a simple lack of knowledge, lack of practice, lack of cues, and also lack of reinforcement. A lot of social skills are learned from the relationships that the child had with adults and their parents before they start school. It could even be seen that these children might be taught some social skills that could be inappropriate for school but very appropriate for the family and the culture they embrace.
The Social Skills Intervention is a tier 2 group-based intervention in which the aim is to teach and reinforce the correct social skills that students need moving forward with their education. Each of these interventions have the same type of setup and there are certain items that need to be in place before they can be implemented. For the interventions to be successful we need to have a good ratio of teachers to students. This is so the teachers can help to identify when a student presents a correct social skill. In these interventions it is also important to have peer models. Students learn social skills better when they have taught them from their peers. It is also crucial that there is home to school communication with the intervention that is happening. When parents are aware of what is going on, they can be a crucial part in the success of reinforcing the wanted social skills.
All social skills interventions need to have the following instructional steps:
Tell = Coaching
Show = Modeling
Do = Role Play
Practice = Rehearsal
Monitor Progress
Generalize & Maintain
In the world of early childhood education, social skills interventions are very important. They are also very applicable to young children because they need to have social skills in order to move forward in their schooling and in life. Modeling is also a great way for young children to learn because they can see an adult or peer performing the skills and then they can practice it on their own.
Miss Trone 