The S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education Curriculum for 5^th Grade Students

WHY THIS 5TH GRADE CURRICULUM WAS NEEDED    

High school is a critical time for students. The choices students make in high school often determine life-long outcomes for a student’s life. From the choices of using drugs and alcohol and engaging in sexual activity to going to college or entering the workforce, the impacts of these decisions affect the student’s life, their family’s life for generations, and the entire community.

I created the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum for 5^th 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 5^th 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 Common Core 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 5^th 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 5^th 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

The first step is to contact me to discuss the best implementation plan for your school or district. Then educators who will lead the curriculum participate in the Train the Trainer program. They learn how to teach the curriculum based on their own teaching style and unique needs of their students. Educators receive an Instructor Guide as well as a copy of the textbook for the curriculum and a S.O. What! T-shirt. Implementation of the program can be done in-person, virtually, or a combination of both methods at the determination of each educator.

Students receive a Student Workbook and Journal, a copy of the textbook for the curriculum, and a S.O. What! T-shirt which students are encouraged to wear when engaging with the curriculum. The program starts with students sharing a S.O. What! Statement of a current challenge or insecurity. 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. The lessons are designed to fit in 60-90 minute blocks and can be scaled up or down to accommodate various group sizes and learning situations.  Although many schools allocate 2-3 class meetings per lesson at least one semester for the full curriculum, most schools spread the lessons over a full school year because of the depth of materials covered in the lessons and the interest of the students.

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. In the final activity, students create their 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.