Emotional literacy is the ability to understand, talk about, and manage the biological information supplied by our emotions, and to empathize with other peoples emotions and feelings. It involves a sophisticated set of learned social and emotional skills that tend to receive a lot of emphasis in the early grades. Emotional literacy is made up of the following components:

• Knowing your feelings: This involves the ability to identify and label feelings in ourselves and others.

• Having a sense of empathy: This involves the ability to understand and share the feelings of others.

• Learning to manage your emotions: This involves the ability to regulate and express emotions in appropriate ways.

• Repairing emotional mistakes: This involves the ability to recognize and repair emotional mistakes in ourselves and others.

Emotional literacy is a social process that takes place in a social setting and is something that is never really achieved, but rather is a continual process that includes dialogue, acceptance of ambiguity, and the ability to reflect. Emotional literacy is both an individual development and a collective activity, and is both about self-development and the building of community so that ones own sense of emotional well-being grows along with that of others, and not at their expense. Emotional literacy has far-reaching consequences and has been linked to improved academic performance, work success, and satisfaction in personal relationships.