How can BASE: Building Advanced Social Education help you?

 

Have you ever watch students socially stumble because they didn't understand the hidden curriculum?  Have you ever had to tell a student NO before?  Have you seen students crumble, whine, and cry over it?  Or have you seen children struggle, cry, and meltdown because they lacked perspective?    Then the BASE: TOP's is for you!

 

This book is the second social skills curriculum in the series.  It offers 32 detailed lessons to be taught during classroom instruction for 20-30 minutes daily. The TOP is organized into 4 units; each unit containing 8 lessons. Each lesson is taught over a 5-day period. All 4 units are intended to be taught consecutively over a 32-week period. There is a Home Connection for the parents with each lesson to maximize learning across a variety of settings. 

 

The BASE incorporates the reading of children’s books to support social skill instruction.  With each lesson, there is a book list that the teacher or parent can choose to read with their child to expose them to a variety of social interactions. Children’s books have many social interactions with each story and each part of the book represents a snapshot of social interaction that ranges from non-verbal cues to safety conditions and self-regulation. “Social skills intervention that is carefully planned, implemented, and scaffold into the curriculum presents a greater opportunity for learning than does incidental social skills instruction” (Anderson 2000), and children’s books can give this support. 

 

Finally, the BASE has ASSESSMENT component so you can track the results of their learning!  You will have the tools in your hand to see if students are making progress and gains you hope to see.  BASE also offers surveys for teachers, students, and parents!  Watch your students make social skills progress and have the data to prove it!  As a bonus, BASE offers IEP goal banks for you to build a custom goal for your student and ways to track the data and evidence throughout it!

 

All 32 lessons support three principal long-term goals: demonstration of a learning body, independent emotional regulation, and positive peer and adult interaction. Each unit supports one aspect of social communication. The following is a summary of each unit:

 

Unit 1 Communication: There are many parts to communicating with others. To communicate effectively, we need to understand how to follow the social rules, share what is unique about the individual, greetings, and getting to know others; along with active listening, advocating, and giving compliments.

 

Unit 2 Non-Verbal Communication: Talking is only one part of communication. To communicate effectively, we also need to learn how to read physical gestures, the tone of voice, eye contact, body language, physical appearance, hygiene, and how to make an impression.

 

Unit 3 Feelings: Feelings play a major role in communication. We need to learn how to self-regulate emotions, identify feelings, manage strong feelings, control feelings, and how to cope and deal with changes and actions that you weren’t expecting.

 

Unit 4 Group Work: Communication often occurs within a group of people. There are special social skills to learn when communicating within a group.  We will learn how to work in a group, learn what the group is thinking and feeling, how to join a group, sharing, understanding social lies (how to protect the feelings of others), and how to work through differences/problems.

 

How is BASE structured?

BASE’s TOP curriculum units are structured as follows:

• 32 five-day lessons

• 1-4 skills per lesson

• Goal, purpose, and daily lesson objectives

• Vocabulary

• Video Modeling

• Social coaching practice for two days: working with different scenarios and watching the video modeling video

• Differentiation: A leveling system to be used according to the developmental needs of the students. 

  • Level 1: Demonstration (show me/tell me),

  • Level 2: Example (provide an example)

  • Level 3: Application (the student directly applies the skill).

• Book lists to help students relate the social skill they are learning to the characters in the story

• Generalization assessment through video modeling and practice

• Home Connection newsletter with each week’s lesson.

 

Each lesson follows the same sequence:

Day 1: Vocabulary instruction

Day 2: Practice through video modeling

Day 3: Roleplaying with given scenarios

Day 4: Recording the student’s skills through the video modeling to check for understanding

Day 5: Assessment

 

Purchase the BASE and watch your students gain social skills, decrease their behaviors, and lower their anxiety so that they can have successful social interactions with others!