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Summer Owens2020-08-21 18:38:012022-01-14 05:17:43What Makes a Successful Character Education CurriculumThe S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education Curriculum for 5th Grade Students
“Students became more engaged in reading. A few students would stumble over words but after a few book club meetings their reading became more fluent. The vocabulary is very rich and really helped students get a real world understanding of the terminology.”
-Shelia Chatman, Elementary School, Professional School Counselor
WHY THIS 5TH GRADE CURRICULUM WAS NEEDED
I created the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum for 5th grade students first at the request of elementary educators who saw the accelerated interest in and exposure to mature content to their students. I wanted to help these young students appreciate their childhoods and understand the impact of more mature activities. I also wanted to help prepare them for middle school and the new opportunities and challenges they would face. The grade-appropriate curriculum helps students understand themselves, face their challenges, and set themselves up for success while improving literacy and academic performance.
The curriculum has been impactful because I combine a relatable, non-fiction text that youth actively seek to read with a workbook that uses higher learning standards for English Language Arts to teach critical life lessons. Most students see themselves in the story, and the workbook encourages them to examine their choices and prepare for the future they want to have.
A Life Skills Curriculum for 5th Grade Students that Improves Literacy
The S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum guides students through my journey from bullying and insecurity to confidence and success. Through the text along with the workbook and journal, students explore the obstacles that I encountered, discuss my challenges and choices, and examine their own. The curriculum helps students discover who they are, what they like, and possible career paths to pursue. With a focus on helping students achieve success by overcoming their obstacles, eliminating their excuses, and calculating their choices, the curriculum addresses tough topics that impact students’ lives the most. The non-fiction text has an estimated Lexile band of 1050-1160, which aptly supports the Higher Learning Standands emphasis on text range, quality and complexity. Most importantly, even students who have said they don’t like to read are actively reading the text and improving their literacy skills.
A 5th Grade Curriculum that Helps Schools:
- Improve academic performance, standardized test scores, school attendance rates, graduation rates, and post-secondary attendance rates
- Build digital literacy and STEM skills
- Develop college and career goals and workforce readiness
- Promote literacy, academic excellence, health-related and financial education
- Build self-esteem and help students value themselves and their futures
- Reduce bullying and violence and decrease discipline referrals
- Encourage leadership, teamwork, and community involvement
- Develop character and teach life skills to help students succeed in school and beyond
- Improve emotional learning initiatives
A Literacy and Life Skills Curriculum the Parent Turned Teacher Can Easily Support
Parents have always played a critical role in supporting the educational achievements of their children. They are also a student’s first teachers of life skills and character development. With many parents now forced into a teacher role, educators need curriculum that parents even without the background and the patience of educators can easily support. Students as well as adults can relate to the text and workbook contents of the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum. Because the curriculum fosters important conversations, educators and parents learn more about their student as the student learns more about themselves, how to make good decisions and overcome their challenges, and how to set and achieve goals for their future.
What educators say about the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum for 5th Grade Students
“I learned to read and be confident in myself.”
-Simora, 5th grade
How the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education Curriculum Works
1. Contact me to discuss the number of students and facilitators in your program. We then also discuss the best implementation plan for your program, school or district.
2. After purchasing the curriculum, you will receive all materials which include:
For students:
- The Life After Birth textbooks
- The S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education workbooks
- S.O. What! T-shirts
For facilitators:
- The S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education Curriculum license and access to the online portal
- The Life After Birth textbook
- The S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education Instructor Guide
- S.O. What! T-shirt
3. Facilitators then take the one-hour online Train the Trainer course available in the online portal.
4. Facilitators distribute materials to students and begin curriculum implementation based on the plan I support you in developing.
A few points to note:
- The program starts with students sharing a S.O. What! Statement of a current challenge or insecurity. This statement helps students take away the power from their problems and sets the tone for openness, connection, and respect for the remainder of the program.
- The workbook includes 14 lessons each of which can be taught over one or multiple periods depending on the goals of the facilitator and identified needs of the class/group.
- Most programs allocate 2-3 meetings per lesson and spend at least one semester for the full curriculum implementation.Because student engagement is typically high and the curriculum includes several topics, many programs implement the curriculum over an entire school year.
- A capstone project concludes the program. Students revisit the key topics of each lesson, perform a job shadowing activity then write and present on what they learned and how they will apply what they learned to their careers and lives in general.
- For the final activity, students create So NOW What? Statements where they express how they will move forward from the challenge stated in their S.O. What! Statement.
Bring This Impactful Literacy Curriculum to Your School or District
Contact me to discuss the best implementation plan for the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum in your classroom, school or district. I’ll help you get your students reading, writing, thinking, dreaming, and achieving S.O. What! Success.
Looking for an inspiring, relatable speaker to encourage and motivate your high school students. Bring Summer to your campus in-person or virtually!
Schools using the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum also get the Summer Send-Off program at the conclusion of the curriculum implementation.
Key curriculum topics:
- Self-esteem
- Bullying
- Decision-making
- Understanding emotions
- Cause and effect
- Relationships and sex
- STD’s and teen pregnancy
- The power of friends
- Money management
- Accountability
- Responsibility
- Handling disappointment
- Communication skills
- Planning and thinking ahead
- The importance and impact of education
- Delayed gratification
- Goal setting
- Making a good impression
- The value of hard work
- Prioritizing
- Handling disappointments
Available in versions for:
Third-party Evaluation of the Curriculum
This program works!
Let’s talk about how to make it work for your students.
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