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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, positive behaviour (SEB) and executive function (EF) skills through their daily interactions with the children.
The EASEL Approach was developed to enhance educators’ practices in creating a high- quality classroom environment that promotes SEB and EF skills development for all children.
Figure 1. The nine EASEL practices
The EASEL practices (Figure 1) were extracted from interventions delivered in early childhood settings that were found to be effective in fostering nurturing and responsive educator-child relationships, high quality classroom environment and the enhancement of children’s outcomes. When these practices are carried out appropriately, frequently and consistently throughout the day – such as the use of active listening, in providing choices for children and descriptive praise – children are able to engage in positive interactions.
The EASEL practices provide structure, learning opportunities, and socio-emotional development, ensuring that these foundational skills are nurtured every day, across a variety of classroom activities, such as playtime, snack time, and transitions between activities.
What has been our journey so far?
In EASEL’s pilot trial in 2023, educators participated in an introductory workshop, a one-day training and received EASEL materials (e.g., handbook, access to an online learning platform) as well as one-to-one coaching. The individual coaching sessions included classroom observation, facilitated reflection and feedback over 4 to 6 months. Each EASEL educator met with a coach fortnightly to discuss what worked well, strategies for identified challenges and ways to refine their use of the EASEL practices.
One key insight from this trial was that how EASEL was implemented in classrooms was crucial in determining its effectiveness. Educators valued individual coaching and highlighted the need for EASEL practices to be continually adapted and integrated into their own unique teaching context. This context varied by educators’ experience, children’s age, centre culture, leadership support and operators’ mandated curriculum.
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.