A social language curriculum
that lives inside your literacy block.
The Trust Curriculum layers social language and social emotional learning into the books your classrooms are already reading. There is no separate program to adopt and no new block to find. It is built on the Trust Framework, the relational foundation beneath every lesson, activity, and plan.
Calibrated to the grade it is taught in.
Developmental Alignment
Each grade band is aligned to age-level language developmental norms, so the framework vocabulary and expectations are calibrated to what students are actually ready to understand and use.
Adult Modeling Resources
Each grade band includes dedicated resources for adults, helping educators understand the social language they are modeling versus the social language they are expecting from students, so we are never over-prompting or under-prompting.
Progress Rubric and Red Flags
A grade-specific rubric gives teachers clear tools to track student progress, and to identify red flags that signal a need for more intensive support. Entrance and exit criteria for special education services are built directly into the framework.
One framework, taught four ways.
Belonging Series
A series of repetitive picture books designed so students hear the same message echo across every corner of their school day. The same theme, the same language, different settings and different adults, telling one shared story of belonging.
Repeated exposure is one of the most well-established mechanisms for growing receptive and expressive language. The series threads a single social language storyline through every adult a student encounters in a day.
- Tier 1, for all. Every student reads the same books. Every adult holds the same behavioral expectations. Belonging is taught, not assumed.
- Tier 2, small group. Repeated exposure focused on reading comprehension, social skills, or both, using stories students already know from Tier 1.
- Tier 3, reinforced across the day. The series carries into ELA, math, science, history, and the spaces between.
- Special education, push-in and pull-out. SLPs and school counselors can push in, co-teach, or lead whole-group instruction without a separate program. Students hear continuity rather than code-switching between the small room and the general education classroom.
Grades 3 to 4
The elementary band carries the framework into chapter books and longer read-alouds, where students begin naming social situations they are already navigating.
Middle School Edition
As students move into the middle school years, social complexity accelerates. The Trust Curriculum gives them precise language for what they are already experiencing: the shifting loyalties, the new independence, and the moments that feel impossible to name.
- ELA teachers integrate framework vocabulary into existing novel units.
- School counselors lead 1D, 2D, and 3D small group sessions tied to current read-alouds.
- SLPs and social workers target social problem-solving plans during pull-out and push-in.
- Social plans come alive. Direct, indirect, and boundary plans give students language for decisions they are already making, often impulsively, every day.
- Cross-discipline integration. History, science, and advisory period are natural homes for the framework at this level. Every adult in the building speaks the same language.
- IEP-aligned social skills goals. Framework vocabulary maps directly onto social pragmatics goals. Progress is measurable within the academic context students are already in.
Each unit includes a student workbook. Students read chapters, participate in group discussion questions, and respond to individual journal prompts.
High School and Transition Edition
High school is where the stakes of social navigation become concrete: college, employment, and adult relationships. The Trust Curriculum at this level moves from vocabulary building into intentional social agency.
- ELA and humanities teachers embed framework analysis into existing novel and nonfiction units.
- Transition specialists use post-secondary texts to apply the framework to workplace and community relationships.
- SLPs, psychologists, and counselors target generalization across school, work, and home.
- Transition beyond graduation. The framework extends past K-12 into the environments students face next: workplaces, college dorms, independent living, and community spaces where no one is handing them a script.
- Social agency, not compliance. Students at this level do not need more scripts. They need frameworks for thinking.
- IEP transition planning. Framework goals align with IDEA transition requirements. Social competence in community, vocational, and postsecondary settings is measurable, teachable, and directly connected to the texts students are already reading.
One book. Every perspective.
The teacher selects a book and creates a lesson plan, and can invite the specialist team to layer in their own goals and activities alongside the core lesson.
OTs, SLPs, BCBAs, and PTs reply with activities, adaptations, and materials tied to the same book. Everything is co-located and visible to the team.
Every reply, attachment, and collaborative activity is tied to the students it supports. Consultation that has always existed is finally counted.
Every role in the building.
General Education Teachers
Lead the read-aloud. Invite specialists to layer goals without pulling students out of the room.
Speech-Language Pathologists
Log indirect service minutes for co-planning, materials preparation, and consultation.
Occupational Therapists
Attach fine-motor and sensory activities to the same books the class is already reading.
BCBAs
Layer behavior support plans alongside classroom instruction, in one place, fully visible.
Special Education Teachers and Coordinators
Exportable indirect-minute reports for state reporting, compliance, and IEP documentation.
Families
Access the same books and activities your child uses at school.
Built on the Trust Framework.
The curriculum is the application. The framework is the foundation beneath it, and it is worth reading first.
Read the Trust Framework