List of Self-Regulation Skills for Curriculum Planning
These self-regulation skills and examples of ways to support children can guide planning.
Using this list of skills and examples of activities, you could brainstorm some things that you already do or that you might be able to do to support young children’s development of self-regulation. These could be through activities, games, something set up in the environment, methods of guidance, etc. that are age appropriate for the children.
Clancy Blair and others describe the following self-regulation skills as being associated with “successful school adjustment." Examples of activities are suggested for each skill.
1. Move or act in a deliberate or purposeful fashion
- Examples: finger plays and action songs(Where is Thumbkin? and Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes); move to a drum beat (do what the drum tells you to do); use sign language and teach the children to use sign language.
2. Adapt successfully to familiar settings
- Examples: have a daily schedule that is followed, and make a picture chart to illustrate the daily schedule; have separate cubbies or lockers for each child with their picture and name on it; use word and picture labels for shelves to show where materials are stored; teachers use positive guidance, telling children what to do rather than what not to do.
3. Focus and maintain attention on something
- Examples: story time; sing songs and do finger plays; clay and play dough; easel paint; water table; and, other highly engaging activities.
4. Ignore distractions
- Examples: snack time (and other meals) where there is often a lot of movement and talking as the children eat their food; semi-enclosed area for books where children will look at books or have them read as children play in other learning centers in the room; room is set up in interest centers with different activities going on at the same time.
5. Follow requests or instructions
- Examples: transitions between activities where children follow the requests of the teacher to finish playing, clean up, and come to the next activity; use of re-direction as a guidance technique ("please use indoor voices," "you can build blocks as high as your nose"); age-appropriate board games, and lotto games.
6. Attempt to regulate others
- Examples: children "enforce" classroom rules with other children; in mixed age groups (ex. 2 1/2 to 5 years), older children help younger ones learn how to play with certain toys or games; have materials that more than one person can use simultaneously, such as wagons (one person rides, one person pulls).
7. Create “rules” for a game or play sequence
- Examples: dramatic play where children are coming up with ideas for what to play and who does what. Supports for this can include: dramatic play area; "big blocks" for making larger structures they can play inside of; prop boxes for supporting dramatic play (camping kit; store kit, etc.).
8. Inhibit an inappropriate response
- Examples: have classroom rules about not hurting others; learn and sing complex movement songs such as the song, Bingo (There was a farmer who had a dog and Bingo was his name-o....) where children have to suppress saying the name of the letter and clapping instead; take care of classroom materials, such as putting the paint brush with the red paint on it back in the can with the red paint, instead of in one of the other colors; play games like "Mother May I?"
9. Alternately shift your attention and refocus it
- Examples: conduct fire drills; use of a signal, like flashing classroom lights, or clapping a rhythm, to get the whole group's attention; Lotto games where you have to pay attention to your card and the picture that is being held up.
10. Inhibit movement or speech when appropriate
- Examples: rest time; games like "statue" or "freeze;" measure children's height on a wall chart; keep "paint covered" hands off other children and furniture.
11. Regulation of emotions in appropriate social interaction
- Examples: Lotto games, where the picture that is drawn is not necessarily on your card, but sometimes is; board games - waiting for your turn; read and talk about stories that discuss how a character feels ("Will I Have a Friend?").
12. Regulation of attention
- Examples: play with materials that require you to attend to several elements simultaneously (height, balance, shape, color, orientation, weight, etc.), such as: wooden unit blocks; wooden puzzles; water table (pouring water from one container into another); construction materials such as Legos, Lincoln Logs, etc.; "table toys" or manipulative materials (shape sorter, wooden puzzles, matching puzzles, parquetry blocks for making patterns).
13. Use of strategies in the carrying out of cognitive tasks
- Examples: teachers ask questions of children when they run into problems in an activity ("What else could you use to be the sail on the ship?"); read a story and ask the children questions about it while reading ("Why do you think the little bunny is saying good night to everything in his room?"); teachers can think out loud when solving problems, to model problem solving.
14. Ability to communicate needs, wants, and thoughts in language
- Examples: teachers stop and get down to child's level to listen to them; group time discussions; teachers model constructive communication and support children's efforts to communicate their needs, wants, and thoughts in language through allowing enough time and attention; teacher learns key phrases in the child's first or home language.
15. Ability to sustain attention
- Examples: story time; teachers remind children to stay at the table at meals; play board games or lotto games.
16. Ability to be curious and enthusiastic when doing new activities
- Examples: teachers model curiosity and enthusiasm about new activities; teachers bring in new materials (such as found objects, like long, thick cardboard tubes from rolls of fabric) as "provocations" or stimulation for new ideas.
17. Can inhibit impulsivity and follow directions
- Examples: have bike riding rules, such as: you must wear a helmet; you must all ride in the same direction
18. Can take turns in speech and/or behavior
- Examples: taking turns in a group time activity; having materials that must be shared, like play dough tools; having fewer tricycles than there are children in a group.
19. Shows sensitivity to others' feelings, particularly other children
- Examples: when children have a disagreement, adult intervenes and asks about how each child feels or how they think the other person might be feeling; read stories that address feelings and have children discuss the story.
20. Can keep information in his/her mind when trying to solve a problem
- Examples: wooden picture puzzles; multi-media art projects; cooking projects; child assists setting tables for lunch or snack.
21. Able to inhibit impulsive responses when formulating and carrying out a response
- Examples: Lego blocks (lock them together carefully); unit blocks (stack them so the building is sturdy); building with clay (squeeze just enough, but not too much to make a bird's egg), regulating the amount of paint in an easel brush (dip brush in cup of paint and push on side of can to remove excess paint).
Kathy A. Bobula, Ph.D.
2016
__________________________________________________
Blair, Clancy. (July 2003). "Self Regulation and School Readiness. ERIC Digest." Champaign, Il: ERIC Clearing House on Elementary and Early Childhood Education.
Using this list of skills and examples of activities, you could brainstorm some things that you already do or that you might be able to do to support young children’s development of self-regulation. These could be through activities, games, something set up in the environment, methods of guidance, etc. that are age appropriate for the children.
Clancy Blair and others describe the following self-regulation skills as being associated with “successful school adjustment." Examples of activities are suggested for each skill.
1. Move or act in a deliberate or purposeful fashion
- Examples: finger plays and action songs(Where is Thumbkin? and Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes); move to a drum beat (do what the drum tells you to do); use sign language and teach the children to use sign language.
2. Adapt successfully to familiar settings
- Examples: have a daily schedule that is followed, and make a picture chart to illustrate the daily schedule; have separate cubbies or lockers for each child with their picture and name on it; use word and picture labels for shelves to show where materials are stored; teachers use positive guidance, telling children what to do rather than what not to do.
3. Focus and maintain attention on something
- Examples: story time; sing songs and do finger plays; clay and play dough; easel paint; water table; and, other highly engaging activities.
4. Ignore distractions
- Examples: snack time (and other meals) where there is often a lot of movement and talking as the children eat their food; semi-enclosed area for books where children will look at books or have them read as children play in other learning centers in the room; room is set up in interest centers with different activities going on at the same time.
5. Follow requests or instructions
- Examples: transitions between activities where children follow the requests of the teacher to finish playing, clean up, and come to the next activity; use of re-direction as a guidance technique ("please use indoor voices," "you can build blocks as high as your nose"); age-appropriate board games, and lotto games.
6. Attempt to regulate others
- Examples: children "enforce" classroom rules with other children; in mixed age groups (ex. 2 1/2 to 5 years), older children help younger ones learn how to play with certain toys or games; have materials that more than one person can use simultaneously, such as wagons (one person rides, one person pulls).
7. Create “rules” for a game or play sequence
- Examples: dramatic play where children are coming up with ideas for what to play and who does what. Supports for this can include: dramatic play area; "big blocks" for making larger structures they can play inside of; prop boxes for supporting dramatic play (camping kit; store kit, etc.).
8. Inhibit an inappropriate response
- Examples: have classroom rules about not hurting others; learn and sing complex movement songs such as the song, Bingo (There was a farmer who had a dog and Bingo was his name-o....) where children have to suppress saying the name of the letter and clapping instead; take care of classroom materials, such as putting the paint brush with the red paint on it back in the can with the red paint, instead of in one of the other colors; play games like "Mother May I?"
9. Alternately shift your attention and refocus it
- Examples: conduct fire drills; use of a signal, like flashing classroom lights, or clapping a rhythm, to get the whole group's attention; Lotto games where you have to pay attention to your card and the picture that is being held up.
10. Inhibit movement or speech when appropriate
- Examples: rest time; games like "statue" or "freeze;" measure children's height on a wall chart; keep "paint covered" hands off other children and furniture.
11. Regulation of emotions in appropriate social interaction
- Examples: Lotto games, where the picture that is drawn is not necessarily on your card, but sometimes is; board games - waiting for your turn; read and talk about stories that discuss how a character feels ("Will I Have a Friend?").
12. Regulation of attention
- Examples: play with materials that require you to attend to several elements simultaneously (height, balance, shape, color, orientation, weight, etc.), such as: wooden unit blocks; wooden puzzles; water table (pouring water from one container into another); construction materials such as Legos, Lincoln Logs, etc.; "table toys" or manipulative materials (shape sorter, wooden puzzles, matching puzzles, parquetry blocks for making patterns).
13. Use of strategies in the carrying out of cognitive tasks
- Examples: teachers ask questions of children when they run into problems in an activity ("What else could you use to be the sail on the ship?"); read a story and ask the children questions about it while reading ("Why do you think the little bunny is saying good night to everything in his room?"); teachers can think out loud when solving problems, to model problem solving.
14. Ability to communicate needs, wants, and thoughts in language
- Examples: teachers stop and get down to child's level to listen to them; group time discussions; teachers model constructive communication and support children's efforts to communicate their needs, wants, and thoughts in language through allowing enough time and attention; teacher learns key phrases in the child's first or home language.
15. Ability to sustain attention
- Examples: story time; teachers remind children to stay at the table at meals; play board games or lotto games.
16. Ability to be curious and enthusiastic when doing new activities
- Examples: teachers model curiosity and enthusiasm about new activities; teachers bring in new materials (such as found objects, like long, thick cardboard tubes from rolls of fabric) as "provocations" or stimulation for new ideas.
17. Can inhibit impulsivity and follow directions
- Examples: have bike riding rules, such as: you must wear a helmet; you must all ride in the same direction
18. Can take turns in speech and/or behavior
- Examples: taking turns in a group time activity; having materials that must be shared, like play dough tools; having fewer tricycles than there are children in a group.
19. Shows sensitivity to others' feelings, particularly other children
- Examples: when children have a disagreement, adult intervenes and asks about how each child feels or how they think the other person might be feeling; read stories that address feelings and have children discuss the story.
20. Can keep information in his/her mind when trying to solve a problem
- Examples: wooden picture puzzles; multi-media art projects; cooking projects; child assists setting tables for lunch or snack.
21. Able to inhibit impulsive responses when formulating and carrying out a response
- Examples: Lego blocks (lock them together carefully); unit blocks (stack them so the building is sturdy); building with clay (squeeze just enough, but not too much to make a bird's egg), regulating the amount of paint in an easel brush (dip brush in cup of paint and push on side of can to remove excess paint).
Kathy A. Bobula, Ph.D.
2016
__________________________________________________
Blair, Clancy. (July 2003). "Self Regulation and School Readiness. ERIC Digest." Champaign, Il: ERIC Clearing House on Elementary and Early Childhood Education.