childsg@nus.edu.sg 
Follow us on LinkedIn 
NUS, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine 
The EASEL Approach
Importance of socio-emotional development and executive function skills
Socio-emotional skills and behavioural regulation refer to children’s ability to understand, experience, express and regulate their emotions, behaviours and their capacity to form meaningful relationships with others. Executive function skills are a set of mental processes that allow individuals to control their thoughts, emotions and actions to achieve goals. The three components of executive function skills include working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. These skills are essential for learning, social interaction and overall development for children, in acquiring lifelong skills and to be successful in school and in life.
Socio-emotional and executive function skills are crucial for children to form and maintain healthy relationships, communicate, show empathy, resolve conflicts, navigate challenges and learn from others.
What is the EASEL Approach and what are we trying to achieve?
In Singapore, young children generally spend a significant proportion of time in early childhood care and education settings. Educators in these settings thus play an important role in promoting young children’s socio-emotional and executive function skills through their daily interactions with the children.
The EASEL Approach was developed to provide universal support (Figure 1) within the early childhood classroom setting, where educators would be able to use the EASEL approach intentionally for all the students throughout the day.
Figure 1. Universal Support through the EASEL Approach
The EASEL approach consists of a set of practices that early childhood educators can use and embed into their daily interactions with children to promote children’s socio-emotional and executive function skill development. The EASEL Approach comprises practices that provide structure, learning opportunities, and socio-emotional development through a high-quality classroom environment where nurturing, responsive educator-child relationships are promoted. These universal practices were systematically drawn from preschool classroom interventions shown to be effective in enhancing children’s socio-emotional and executive function skills. Adaptation of these practices for the local context was carried out with inputs from local school leaders and educators’ trainers.
The foundations of school readiness for children encompass not only the attainment of literacy, numeracy, communication, self-help and motor skills, but includes socio-emotional competence. This refers to children’s ability to regulate their emotions, show empathy, and form positive relationships, which are crucial for learning and interacting in a classroom environment. Based on this, the EASEL Approach aims to promote children’s socio-emotional, behavioural and executive function skills and set them up for success in later childhood and beyond.
What is the EASEL Community of Practice (CoP)?
To support educators in adopting and sustaining the use of EASEL practices, the EASEL CoP aims to provide a platform for EASEL educators to share knowledge, problem-solve, and enhance the ways in which they embed EASEL practices across all classroom interactions. Updated materials and top-up training for the EASEL approach can also be shared through this platform.
What are the benefits of participating in the EASEL CoP?
The EASEL CoP will be facilitated by the CHILD EASEL team (the core team involved in the design, training, implementation, and evaluation of the EASEL Approach). This multidisciplinary team consists of educators, psychologists, therapists, and trainers with strong expertise in child development.
Through the CoP, participants have opportunities for knowledge exchange – sharing and learning – from other CoP members on ways to embed and tailor the EASEL Approach in their settings, identify solutions to overcome challenges and to support their colleagues in implementing the EASEL Approach. Members of the CoP will also have access to online platforms for additional resources related to the EASEL Approach and an online support network.
If you are a preschool educator, preschool centre leader or a curriculum lead and are interested in being part of the EASEL CoP, please scan the QR code below to indicate your interest. We will contact you to provide you with more information about the EASEL CoP.
Please contact us via child-easel@nus.edu.sg if you have any enquiries about the EASEL Approach.