Teaching SEL One Story at a Time: How I Use Picture Books to Build Character

Key Points

• Picture books provide a powerful way to integrate SEL and character trait instruction into elementary school lessons.
• Follow along as one teacher describes her quest to support empathy, perseverance, and kindness through reading from enriching and engaging books.
• Now a curriculum and instruction specialist, she helps more students identify and practice productive mindsets and behaviors through districtwide initiatives like the Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day.

It was the spring of 2020. At my school, we’d all been sent home. I didn’t yet know we wouldn’t be returning for at least a year, but it was clear that if we were carrying on class from our homes, I’d need to change the way I taught my first graders. I also knew that we would need social and emotional learning (SEL) more than ever.

That’s why, in one of our first online class meetings, you could find me on a Zoom meeting reading to my students about a gorilla named Koko.

What Koko Taught My Kids During COVID

The book was one of my favorites, Dr. Francine Patterson’s classic children’s book Koko’s Kitten, the story of the signing gorilla who lived in my students’ home state of California. My decision to read to my students from this kind of story wasn’t a break from how I’d been teaching before. In fact, new discoveries in the year prior had prepared me for this moment. Through Dr. Patterson’s book, I taught my students about the character trait of perseverance.

In this book, Koko learns ASL alongside her teacher and keeper Francine. Koko had longed for—and asked for in ASL—a kitten of her own. Despite Francine’s valiant efforts, a kitten suitable for Koko just couldn’t be found. As a class, we talked about how Koko must have felt during that time. Could we tell from the photographs that Koko was sad? What did the author write in the book that conveyed Koko’s feelings? Could we have empathy for her having to wait so long until she FINALLY got her kitten? (Happy note: she finally DID get that kitten!)

We brainstormed about so many skills with this lesson: animal kindness, effective communication, learning a language, asking for what you want and need, recognizing and respecting Koko’s perspective and feelings. I still look back on this lesson with fond memories during that very trying time for students and educators alike.

Prepping for Koko

Back in the fall of 2019, my 22nd year of teaching, I noticed something new. Most of my students needed support with impulse control, understanding the perspectives of fellow classmates, and self-discipline. I was doing much more problem solving AFTER an incident than I’d ever done before, and I needed a different approach to help with conflicts.

To help address this situation, I put together lessons that I could use to explicitly teach SEL skills by focusing on positive character traits. When students are engaged in learning about people (and animals), they start to see positive characters who exhibit kindness, curiosity, and other traits they admire.

When we connect these traits to social and emotional skills by modeling and teaching how we can be more empathetic and build positive relationships in our classroom space, they start talking with each other, and they begin to see how their actions affect everyone else. They become a team that seeks to support each other, rather than tattle and bicker. Early in my career, I had put together a list that I originally called “Working Together Skills.” Once I was trained in the CASEL core competencies, I saw how we could combine all these important skills into our SEL instruction.

Teaching Kindergarten, first and second grade throughout my career, I always relied heavily on picture books to introduce a concept. My favorite time of the day is after lunch, sitting on the carpet with my students, reading a story that will catch their interest in what we’re about to learn. Seeing those wide eyes, hearing them laugh and then ask questions, is the BEST feeling as a teacher. To help fund my new effort to add more SEL books to my classroom library,  I wrote and received a grant to obtain a diverse range of picture books I could read to my students each day.

Then I taught an engaging lesson focused on SEL, incorporating the person or the animal and the character trait highlighted in the book. I specifically looked for diversity as I selected those picture books so they would represent the students in my class. Kindness to animals has always been very important for me to teach as well. That very first year was a joyful learning experience for both me and my first graders!

Bringing the Lesson Forward

Fast forward to 2025. I now serve as my district’s curriculum and instruction specialist for SEL and equity. I am actively working on innovative and meaningful ways to implement SEL lessons and experiences within our district. 

As an example, many of our schools recently participated in the nationwide Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day on November 14. On November 14, 1960, Ruby Bridges was the first Black child to desegregate the previously all-White William Franz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ruby faced immense racism and had to be walked to school by U.S. Marshalls for her safety. Ruby continues her activism today and has written several books about her experience.

In honor of her, our district’s schools marched together, read books about Ruby together, and had great discussions about Ruby’s legacy. This event is sponsored by AAA, who offered generous grants for flags, banners, beanies, and other great supplies to hand out on the day of the walk. This started with one school (my previous elementary school) and this year grew to 12 schools that participated! Getting the word out to all school sites is part of my current position and I help school sites to plan how they will walk to school together in honor of Ruby.

We learned that Ruby used her own SEL skills of self-awareness, self-management, and responsible decision-making skills to summon the bravery it took to walk to school on that first day of integrated schools in New Orleans. We had an opportunity to recognize our own privilege as we walked to school in her honor. We discussed how Ruby’s incredible courage required grit, bravery, and perseverance, and how we can apply these same traits to overcome challenges in our own educational journey.

I invite you to incorporate character trait education into your SEL practice in your own classroom, school, or district! When I first started, I developed a list of some traits I wanted to emphasize. Then I compiled a list of books from what I already had in my own classroom library. I also relied heavily on recommendations from a curriculum called “The Character Tree,” which offered great suggestions for books and other resources. There are many websites that have lists of books to teach character traits, at all grade levels. There are also many products that fellow teachers have created to help teach character traits and SEL. 

Here are a few character traits I like to emphasize (though there are many others as well!) and amazing people and animals to get you started:

Bravery – Ruby Bridges, Martin Luther King, Simone Biles, Malala Yousafzai, Rosa Parks

Perseverance – Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey, Bethany Hamilton, Steve Jobs, Helen Keller

Compassion – Jonas Salk, Harriet Tubman, Princess Diana, Mahatma Gandhi, Jane Goodall

Kindness – Jesse Owens, Steve Irwin & Family, Johnny Appleseed, Mr. Fred Rogers, Clara Barton

Teamwork– Service Dogs, Firefighters, Togo the Sled Dog, Apollo 11 Crew, Sports Teams

The views in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CASEL.

Christina Cook has been an educator for 27 years, mostly in early elementary. She is currently serving as her district’s Curriculum & Instructional Specialist in SEL and Equity. She loves to travel with her family, teach students about being kind to all creatures, and to spend time with her three delightful dogs.

Related Posts

• How I Discovered a Treasure Trove of SEL in Nonfiction Picture Books
• SEL Through Art: The Get to Know Me Project
• SEL Steps Into the Spotlight: Theater as the Perfect Setting for Social and Emotional Growth

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