The Center for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is the leading authority in the advancement of social and emotional learning in education. Their focus on empirical evidence and district collaboration has made it the trusted source for educational administrators and policy makers seeking guidance on effectively advancing social and emotional learning in their K–12 students. CASEL has been reviewing SEL programs for over a decade, through an increasingly rigorous selection process.

CASEL’s program certification follows intensive analysis of Reading with Relevance — including our program’s outcomes, curricular materials, and implementation supports — to determine that our program meets their rigorous quality and evidence criteria. Their thorough review found that Reading with Relevance:

• is a well-designed program that provides schools with a systematic classroom-based model promoting the development of a student’s social and emotional competence
• offers high-quality professional development and implementation support to ensure that schools are equipped to effectively implement the program
• has carefully conducted research evaluations that document positive impacts on student behavior and academic performance

To learn more about CASEL’s guide to effective social and emotional programming, explore their SELect certification resources.

Book choice is a big part of the magic of this program: each Reading with Relevance unit is built around a carefully-selected text that authentically engages and motivates students. How do we choose our books? We start by reading a lot of children’s and young adult books, and then use our SEL book selection criteria to guide our final choices. When assessing texts for the program, we ask ourselves questions like: “Is the text enabling, providing counter narratives around diverse identities and promoting self-confidence?” “Are values being explored instead of preached?” “Are there conflicts, decisions, and issues for children to consider, question, and talk about?” “Is there a positive or uplifting tone to the text as a whole?”

In the words of Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, “When children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, or when the images they see are distorted, negative, or laughable, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are a part.” We consider providing diverse books to ALL students a moral imperative — our students need and deserve to both see themselves reflected in literature and use books to build empathetic connections to others.

Our teacher’s guides are chock-full of resources for supporting meaningful exploration of the rich social and emotional themes found in our book selections. In the How to Facilitate section of the teacher’s guide, we preview each book’s social and emotional themes, and provide teachers with instructional supports for framing, discussing, and following up on these topics. We also intentionally build our lesson plans to scaffold students’ exploration of these themes: students reflect on a daily theme prior to reading, share their analysis of how the characters are feeling and responding to the events of the plot through classroom discussion, and then use their journal writing to connect these themes to their own lives and experiences.

Reading with Relevance book selections are designed to provide students with characters and content that reflect their own experiences. This means that some reading selections may include controversial themes, mature content, and/or profanity, particularly in our selections for high school readers.  Many educators specifically seek these titles because they know their students are wrestling with these topics, and teachers value the intentional framing and instructional supports offered by our curriculum. We advise that you review selections carefully and consider your student population as part of your adoption process, and reach out to us for more information if you have questions about the content. Once you’ve made your selections, we urge you to stand behind your book selections, and engage in thoughtful dialogue with concerned parents and community members about the important social and emotional themes in these valuable books.

The time required to complete a unit varies, based on the book selected and your facilitation structure. Each lesson plan is designed to be facilitated in 60-90 minutes of classroom instruction — check the “Inside the Guide” section on any product page to see how many lesson plans are included. Some teachers facilitate Reading with Relevance daily, and move through the units quickly, while others teach lessons once or twice a week as a supplement.

We applaud any state’s work to enact policies which advance the accurate and equitable portrayal of the cultural and racial diversity of American society — one of our goals in publishing Reading with Relevance is to ensure that teachers have curricular materials and instructional supports to make this vision a reality.  Our curriculum has been approved by the California Department of Education for meeting the state’s Social Content Framework.  Visit CDE’s Social Content Framework website, and search for Reading with Relevance to verify the program’s approval.

Absolutely — and many teachers do exactly this!  Reading with Relevance titles explore historical periods like the Civil Rights Movement (March, Warriors Don’t Cry, One Crazy Summer), the California Gold Rush era (Riding Freedom), the Great Depression (Bud, Not Buddy, The Mighty Miss Malone, Esperanza Rising), World War II (Number the Stars), and the war in Afghanistan (I Am Malala), helping students form personal connections to the events of these historical periods.

Yes — our title list includes a number of nonfiction biographical narratives, including I Am Malala, We Beat the Street, Warriors Don’t Cry, and Street Life: Poverty, Gangs, and a Ph.D.

Reading with Relevance was developed in Oakland, CA — a community where 1 in 3 students in an English learner, where 90+ languages are spoken, and where thousands of newcomers are served each day in our schools.  Our students love seeing their experiences reflected in titles like Inside Out & Back Again, Home of the Brave, and Esperanza Rising, which explore the stories of newcomers and English learners.