The S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education Curriculum for Teen and Young Parents

“I wish we could meet every week. I learn so much and it motivates me. I’ve to realize a lot about myself, but it showed me so much more about myself and what I can do with my life.”

-Tia, Adolescent Parenting Program student

Why this Young Parent curriculum was needed

Like for nearly every teen or young parent, becoming a mother at 15 changed everything about my life. I questioned my future and going after my goals became much harder. Many teen parents face the same fears and challenges. Many lack support or appreciation for the support that is available to help them overcome the obstacles teen parents face. Becoming a teen parent is not a death sentence for a young parent’s dreams. In fact, it can be the fuel that ignites the fire for success.

I created the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum for teen and young parents to help young parents understand the tremendous importance of their roles as parents and to help them make decisions to improve their lives with and for their children. The 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 young parents 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 Teen and Young Parents 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 becoming a mother at 15 along the way. Through the text along with the workbook and journal, students explore the obstacles that I encountered as a young mother, 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 young parents 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 Teen and Young Parent Curriculum that Helps Schools and Programs:

Promote self-sufficiency and independent living
Improve financial literacy and promote setting financial goals
Promote healthy relationships and healthy lifestyles
Develop overall parenting skills and parent/child connection
Reduce subsequent teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted disease, poverty, and welfare dependence
Improve academic performance, graduation rates, and post-secondary attendance rates
Develop college and career goals and workforce readiness
Develop reading comprehension and writing skills
Build self-esteem and help students value themselves and their futures
Develop character and teach life skills to help teen parents 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 Teen and Young Parents

What students say about the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum for Teen and Young Parents

How the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education Curriculum Works

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.
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 the Birth textbook
- The S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education Instructor Guide
- S.O. What! T-shirt
Facilitators then take the one-hour online Train the Trainer course available in the online portal.
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 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 teen or young parents.

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.