The purpose of this study was to determine if children with well-developed social-emotional skills attained higher academic achievement than children who did not have appropriate social-emotional skills. The research included collecting observational data of play time of 24 preschool-aged children (12 girls and 12 boys) enrolled in a summer school readiness program at a local children's center. Children's social-emotional and cognitive skills were observed and assessed using the Hawaii Early Learning Profile (HELP) Developmental Checklist. Over a six-week period, the researcher spent time in the school observing children and tallying when students exhibited a skill from the HELP checklist. The researcher also interviewed the lead teacher to see how many academic skills were achieved by each student. Each subjects' social and academic points were charted. In the end, the researcher concluded that while not all children who had age appropriate cognitive skills had age appropriate emotional skills, in many cases the two did correlate. The author recommends that social and emotional skills be taught in the classroom to facilitate learning.