Implementing Social and Emotional Curriculum with Literacy Integration

The Common Core Literacy Standards are the anchor of everyday classrooms. However, not all students meet the expectations set forth in them. Common Core Literacy Standards define cross disciplinary literacy expectations that must be met for students to be prepared to enter college and workforce training programs and be ready to succeed by the end of each grade level. Although a few students are developing the critical thinking skills to meet the Common Core Standards, there are many times during literacy instruction in the classroom that students feel overwhelmed by assignments meeting Common Core standards in reading and writing. Students struggle with managing their emotions while learning to read, which effects their effort and progress in reading. As the literacy expectations increase so does a struggling reader’s frustration. The purpose of this project was to develop a resource guide for educators to integrate the social and emotional curriculum in the classroom for students to make academic progress in reading and writing. The teachers participated in a professional development workshop to share times, investigate lessons from resource guide, and practice using Hyperdocs. This is a small step in an effort to address the lack of social and emotional curriculum in the classroom along with the challenges that students face while meeting grade-level reading standards.