The Missing Link to Help Them Think: Connecting Executive Function and SEL Skills to Boost Student Achievement
By Marilee Sprenger
(ASCD, 2025 – Learn more)
Reviewed by Katie Durkin
Sometimes when I’m reading professional development books, I get the feeling that the author knows my thoughts – that they have personally been inside my classroom and experienced the day-to-day grind of a teacher.
I know this isn’t possible, but every once in a while, I find a book where I feel like the author is speaking directly to me. The Missing Link to Help Them Think: Connecting Executive Function and SEL Skills to Boost Student Achievement by Marilee Sprenger was that book this past summer.
I have always been interested in social-emotional learning (SEL) and intelligences and have been working the last couple of years to make SEL a greater part of my classroom. As with many other endeavors, I always feel I am constantly falling short because of other priorities.
I never thought that I could combine some of what I’m already doing with executive functioning to SEL in order to help my students not just gain skills they would need in their academic careers, but skills they would need to be successful in all of their future endeavors.
The Missing Link to Help Them Think is a short book made up of eight chapters and two appendices. The introduction and first chapter present the integral link between SEL and executive functions, helping readers see the bridge they can create in their classroom between these two major concepts.
Sprenger introduces the five SEL competencies of self-awareness, self management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making that are the focus of the book and then uses the subsequent six chapters to connect these five competences to executive function skills. The six executive functions skills that are discussed in each of the six chapters include impulse inhibition, working memory, attention and focus, cognitive flexibility, self-monitoring, and planning, organization, prioritization, and time management.
The six chapters connecting the SEL competencies to executive functioning skills follow the same formula. Each chapter begins with an example of a student who struggles with the executive function skill that is the focus of that chapter. The author speaks directly to the reader in these scenarios and asks readers to think about if they have seen students in their own spaces that have the same characteristics.
This is where I felt like the author was reading my mind. With every example she provided, I have had many students in the past who fit the profile, and I knew that Sprenger would be providing me with valuable information in these chapters to help students I would teach in the future.
From there, Sprenger focuses on the research and provides a wealth of knowledge from researchers about the various executive functions, giving the reader information about what each executive function looks like for differing ages based on brain development. Sprenger then makes it explicit how the executive function skills relate to all five SEL competencies, supplying an invaluable table with information about the connection.
I further appreciated how Sprenger structured the final three parts of the chapters because these were the aspects of the book I can see myself using in the future. After making the connection between SEL and executive functions, Sprenger has a section on Characteristics of Underdeveloped (insert executive function skill) Students.
For example, the section on Characteristics of Underdeveloped Impulse Inhibition in students provides the reader with information about what to look for in students who are lacking with that executive function skill, which then leads to a lengthy list of strategies to use with both younger and older students. Both lists, the characteristics of students and the strategies, are great resources for teachers. Once they’ve pinpointed an underdeveloped executive function skill, they can use the strategies list to decide on next steps to help the student.
While I found these resources to be a particular highlight of the book, my favorite part of the entire text was self assessments Sprenger provides for each executive function. As a middle school teacher, I firmly believe in helping students develop their metacognition. These self-assessments allow students to think about their own thinking in regard to their executive function skills.
I’ve already made plans with my team to find a way to incorporate these self-assessments into our curricula this school year. I think it will help us to better understand all of our students and to look for patterns of what all of our students need in our daily, weekly, and monthly instruction.
The book’s conclusion reiterates the importance of bridging SEL and executive functions together, both in the classroom and across the wider school community. It also provides a self-assessment for adults to help them better understand their own executive functioning.
The books includes two appendices: one focused on “Universal Executive Function Strategies” and the second on strategies to model executive functioning skills with our students. Similar to the strategies list in each chapter, these appendices provide quick, easy ideas that any teacher can try in their classroom to help them connect SEL to executive functioning skills.
A good resource throughout the school year
Usually when I complete a book review, I like to think about the perfect time of year for educators to pick up the text. Even though I read and enjoyed this book during the summer, it was short and thorough enough that I could have found time at any point in the school year to read it, even with a full teaching load.
I also very much appreciated the same organization in each chapter with specific strategies to use with both younger and older students. I can see myself returning to this book again and again to remind myself of some ideas to try with students that fit the profiles described in this book. If you’re looking for a quick, well-researched, and practical read, this is the perfect book for you.
Dr. Katie Durkin has been teaching middle school students for over a decade, and currently teaches English Language Arts at public Middlebrook School (6-8) in Wilton, Connecticut, where she is the 7th Grade Team Leader.
Katie is a zealous reader of middle grade and young adult books and enjoys sharing her love and passion for reading with her students. In 2022 she earned her doctorate from Northeastern University, where her dissertation research examined the impact of classroom libraries on middle school students’ reading engagement.
Katie was the 2020 recipient of the Edwyna Wheadon Postgraduate Training Scholarship from the NCTE. She writes regularly for MiddleWeb and in early 2023 launched a two-teacher podcast, That’s Novel Reading, “the journey of two middle school teachers who are embarking on a quest to find the best books for kids.”
