Imagine an early learning environment where educators skillfully guide young children through their social and emotional development. While toddlers share toys and preschoolers explore feelings through play, the underlying success of these interactions doesn’t happen by chance. Instead, it’s the result of intentional strategies and support systems.
In early childhood education, the Pyramid Model is a powerful framework to foster social-emotional competence. Yet, implementing this model effectively requires more than just good intentions—it necessitates a structured, systematic approach in which educators are supported by practice-based coaching. This blog explores how practice-based coaching not only supports the Pyramid Model but also transforms its application in real-world settings, as demonstrated by two TORSH customers who have seen remarkable success.
Table of Contents
- SEL in Early Education: Why the Pyramid Model Matters
- How SEL Impacts Early Childhood Outcomes
- Layered SEL Support for Children and Families
- Practice-Based Coaching Is the Heart of the Pyramid Model
- Stories From The Field: Combining Practice-Based Coaching and the Pyramid Model for Social-Emotional Development
- Ensure Coaching Supports Your Pyramid Model Implementation with TORSH
SEL in Early Education: Why the Pyramid Model Matters
Positive social-emotional development in young children relies on attentive adults supporting specific skill-building that matches a child’s developmental growth. With effective practices, educators will successfully support most students as they develop their social-emotional competencies. However, some children will still struggle with things like challenging behaviors or strong emotions, especially those impacted by trauma or other adverse childhood experiences.
Fortunately, no matter what support a child needs to grow socially and emotionally, early childhood educators can turn to the Pyramid Model for help!
The Pyramid Model is a comprehensive framework for early educators to aid in developing core social and emotional skills in young children. It is a powerful and preventive approach that sets up little learners for long-term success.
Using the Pyramid Model for supporting social-emotional competence in children requires thoughtful program-wide implementation and a structured approach to developing educators’ effectiveness with the model’s strategies. In other words, programs need a quality professional development strategy in place.
And the most effective strategy for adopting the Pyramid Model leans on a practice-based coaching framework.
Let’s unpack the connection between this method of professional learning and the impact it has on programs embracing the Pyramid Model for social-emotional competence.
How SEL Impacts Early Childhood Outcomes
It may be obvious to most early learning experts, but it is worth remembering why social-emotional learning (SEL) is so crucial for our littlest learners in the first place.
Between the ages of birth through 5 years old, children undergo incredible physical, emotional, and linguistic growth. They learn to recognize more than 10,000 words (Shipley & McAfee, 2015). They develop critical gross and fine motor skills that allow them to move through the world. And, they practice a huge array of capabilities that support their blossoming relationships with other people, as well as their own physical and emotional self-awareness and management.
All of these skills—especially the social-emotional ones—are essential to their future success, from getting school-ready to “adulting” in the world beyond the classroom. Among the many positive outcomes for children associated with effective SEL are:
- Improved academic performance (Durlak et al., 2011; Taylor et al., 2017)
- Lower truancy and absenteeism (Huan Wang et al., 2016; Cook et al., 2014)
- Fewer challenging behaviors and psychological distress (Reback, 2010)
Further, SEL benefits persist as young learners grow. A meta-analysis in 2017 examined the long-term impact of SEL interventions provided to children in kindergarten. Those who received this support were, on average, more likely to:
- Graduate from high school
- Complete a college degree
- Obtain stable employment in adulthood
Continuous, systemic SEL remains an important learning thread for children until they graduate from high school (Mahoney et al., 2021). And it all starts in early childhood.
But the challenge becomes how to systematically and effectively implement SEL supports for our littlest learners. This is where the Pyramid Model comes in.
Layered SEL Support for Children and Families
From nurturing positive relationships to managing challenging behavior, the Pyramid Model supports early childhood professionals and students with SEL.
According to the National Center of Pyramid Model Intervention, the Pyramid Model of Social and Emotional Competence is “a framework of evidence-based practices for promoting young children’s healthy social and emotional development.” Though not itself a curriculum for SEL, the model creates a structure through which early childhood programs can systematically nurture core life skills in little learners.
Image: Pyramid Model (NCPMI)
The Pyramid Model includes four layers of support (listed below from the bottom of the pyramid upward):
- Effective Workforce
- Nurturing, Responsive Relationships & Environments
- Targeted Social-Emotional Supports
- Intensive Interventions
Those strategies at the bottom of the pyramid apply to all children and families across all programming. Moving up each layer focuses on support for more targeted populations, such as children with disabilities or special needs, and others who may benefit from intensive services such as home-based early interventions.
Research has demonstrated the power of applying the Pyramid Model for promoting social-emotional competence in children. One recent study in Australia found that among preschools that trained their educators on the Pyramid Model, children developed core social and emotional skills at a faster rate compared with children at other preschools (Swalwell & McLean, 2021).
Is it any surprise that this entire model relies on having high-quality staff implementing effective teaching practices?
Program administrators should immediately recognize that at the heart of high-quality teaching lies high-quality professional development that nurtures this effective workforce—including impactful mentoring strategies like practice-based coaching.
Practice-Based Coaching Is the Heart of the Pyramid Model
Many of us in early childhood education already know the power of having the right job-embedded professional learning for teachers. A coaching process to support classroom teachers can impact positive child outcomes in areas like early literacy development. A coaching relationship can also improve teachers’ effectiveness and accuracy by using tools like early childhood assessments. Last, coaching supports programs using the Pyramid Model for challenging behavior in young children and social-emotional growth in general.
So what does effective professional learning and coaching look like when it comes to the Pyramid Model?
First, coaching must be systemic. In one 2021 study, researchers supported 92 teachers with systemic PD and coaching around how to effectively implement the Pyramid Model with children in their classrooms at an elevated risk of worse social and emotional outcomes. They found that systemic support (including a practice-based coaching cycle) increased implementation fidelity among educators and improved social and behavioral outcomes among children. A 2023 study and a 2022 study both found similar results with variations on these professional learning supports.
When given systemic, targeted, practice-based coaching, educators are better able to utilize the Pyramid Model.
Second, coaching must be consistent. Whether it’s delivered one-on-one or through group settings, a practice-based coaching framework is more impactful when teachers receive this kind of support on a regular basis throughout a program year. That’s why one of the Head Start performance standards concentrates just on the professional learning ecosystem of a program, and the importance of developing a cyclical process of ongoing engagement between coach and mentee.
Stories From The Field: Combining Practice-Based Coaching and the Pyramid Model for Social-Emotional Development
Educators can learn from their fellow early learning professionals who have successfully leveraged practice-based coaching to bolster their program’s Pyramid Model adoption and drive positive SEL outcomes for young children. Let’s explore how two programs in Illinois and New Mexico made pivotal shifts in their professional development approaches to embrace coaching.
The Center: Early Childhood Professional Learning (ECPL)
The Center ECPL provides early learning educators throughout Illinois with free professional learning, resources, and other information. These offerings are all geared toward one purpose: helping programs implement high-quality, effective teaching practices that improve learning outcomes for young children and their families.
The Center aids programs embracing the Pyramid Model as part of their approach to SEL in two ways. First, the team holds ongoing webinar training opportunities centered on social-emotional competency. A recent discussion offered practical tips and strategies for developing culturally responsive social emotional supports, utilizing guidance from the Pyramid Model and another framework for cultural competence.
Second, through their ECPL Coaching Project, The Center provides teachers with virtual practice-based coaching and a professional learning communities-like model called Collaborative Learning Sessions. These offerings are provided through TORSH Talent, a secure web-based platform designed to streamline professional development and coaching practices for early education professionals.
Thanks to the platform’s video-based coaching, time-stamped feedback capabilities, and a centralized library of resources, The Center delivers support to teachers in even the most rural or hard-to-reach areas of Illinois, helping them implement evidence-based teaching practices.
Additionally, through TORSH Talent’s Communities feature, Collaborative Learning Sessions aid teachers across different programs to gather and discuss topics, projects, or professional development activities of interest. Among their focus areas is the effective use of the Pyramid Model and its benefits in supporting young children with development or learning disabilities.
Cindy Berrey, Director of The Center explained, “Preschool teacher practices in the state of Illinois are improving because of our coaching model and virtual practice. And we know that a high-quality teacher positively impacts student outcomes.”
Read the full story to learn more about The Center’s success with applying modern technology to practice-based coaching for the Pyramid Model.
