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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]