A social language curriculum companion
that lives inside your literacy block.
The Trust Curriculum Companion infuses durable skills and social language into the books your classrooms are already reading. There is no separate program to adopt and no new block to find. Keep teaching the way you always have, just layer in Trust Framework language to help students name the social complexity between characters in the story, so they have those same words ready when they face something similar themselves.
Built for the classroom you already have.
Every classroom is a language-infused classroom
- A language support guide, like having an SLP consulting beside you
- See what you model vs. what you expect
- No more over-prompting or under-prompting
Built to generalize and change with the student
- Pre/post assessments track growth across social, language, and academic skills
- Flags when a student needs more support
- Data comes from what you already teach
The time you need, given back
- Book companions infused into ELA expectations
- Scale from picture books to complex novels
- Activities that deepen academic and language skills
Not another curriculum. A companion that strengthens the ones you already have.
Keep your Tier 1 initiatives. Keep your specially designed instruction. The Trust Curriculum Companion fills the gap between them. Teachers use it where they need it, and that can change from year to year.
One K-4 teacher, three years
- Year 1A supplement to the writing curriculum, plus All About Me to get to know her students.
- Year 2More students on IEPs. She builds it into her everyday teaching strategies.
- Year 3Many perfectionists, few risk takers. She uses it to teach the language of resilience in conflict, outside of academics.
One middle school, three classrooms
- Class 1Brings it into the one book where students usually struggle to grasp the social complexities.
- Class 2Doesn't use it.
- Class 3Uses it as an activity for the whole class.
One framework that changes with your students.
Social language changes as students age, and the framework adjusts with them, while always anchoring to their Tier 1 curriculum.
The Four Parts of a Learner
I trust myself to be a learner.
- Explores themes inside the curricula you already teach, across the school day
- Names the emotions that come up when learning gets challenging
- Teaches the choices learners can make in those moments
The Dimensions of Trust
I trust myself to make choices.
Group, Opinion, and Emotional Trust, plus the three categories for social problems, supporting the power of choice in the face of challenges.
- Labels trust and social plans between characters in novels, to deepen both social and academic understanding
- Uses that language to navigate, reflect on, and respond restoratively
- From social problems, to interviewing, to workplace knowledge
- Whether a student goes on to a career, more learning, or anything in between, we teach the language that unlocks skills like metacognition, resilience, and agency
Language is the bridge.
Receptive and expressive language underpin all learning, and social language is how we interact with each other during that learning.
- Aligned with Tier 1. It adjusts with your curricula, so it always meets grade level expectations.
- General education and special education. Language and visual supports apply in both settings, connecting the two for one shared reason: students.
- Language-rich environments. Every curriculum and classroom becomes language-rich, with language-based strategies for understanding, expressing, and interacting socially, including the language students use to talk themselves through challenges.
Same language. Adjustable support. Every year.
Meet each level
Grades K-4
Three sentences, repeated across the day: I trust myself to be a learner. Learners get challenged. When I am challenged, I have choices. Taught using language strategies through the books you already read, with a body map visual that makes abstract concepts concrete.
Grades 5-8
Starts at 5th grade intentionally, when social complexity changes. Students learn the language for trust and social plans. Mini interactive lessons support through Tier 3.
Grades 9-12
Continues the 5-8 format, adding post-secondary readiness, and responsible AI and technology use.
Every level includes language support for parents, so they can borrow the language and bring it into the home.
43 books and counting. Every resource ready to teach.
Four Parts of a Learner · K-4
Resource sets
6 novel companions
Dimensions of Trust · 5-12
- 8 interactive mini lessons using an "I do, we do, you do" approach, plus printable lessons
- Student activities and visuals
- 24 novel companions, each with a discussion guide, writing assessment, summative assessment, and group activity
Fit for your students, and the adults that teach them.
Trust doesn't start with students. It starts with the adults in the building. When you can read the trust in your school, you can transform its culture, and that culture is what makes the hard things possible:
- Inclusion, where every student feels they belong in the room
- Change, where new initiatives are welcomed, instead of grieved
- Collaboration, where general education, special education, and administration work as one team
Everyone plays a role
Administrators & Leaders
- Model the culture of trust you want your teachers, the leaders of their own classrooms, to carry forward.
- Take the complimentary Trust Forecast privately, then add your team's voices with a Trust Audit.
- Use the results to build an implementation plan for communication and collaboration through trust.
Educators
- Same books, same framework, delivered however your model calls for it.
- MTSS: Tier 1, the whole class; Tier 2, small group; Tier 3, explicit and individualized.
- Special education: sub-separate programs, co-teaching, pull-out, or co-treat.
Parents
- Durable and social skills naturally show up during the school day, where students spend most of their time.
- School takes on the academic skills, and parents take on the social, emotional, and friendship skills, knowing the two overlap.
- Staying on the same team means better outcomes for students.
Built on the Trust Framework.
The curriculum is the application. The framework is the foundation beneath it.
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