RedRover Readers

Unique story-based classroom curriculum

The innovative RedRover Readers curriculum enables educators to teach empathy while at the same time helping students make responsible decisions and become more aware of themselves and their communities. The program helps children develop the steps necessary for empathy: recognize human and animal emotions, share emotions and regulate emotions. Teachers choose from pre-selected books and then facilitate discussions using our strategies, which also meet Common Core and social and emotional learning competencies.

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Inside Our Curriculum

Step 01

Read

Educators choose from our list of high-quality children’s picture books and present one to a group of children ages 5 to 11, asking thoughtful questions before, during and after the reading.

Step 02

Discuss

Our highly engaging, open-ended discussion techniques and questions help students see and share different perspectives and become aware of themselves within a relationship.

Step 03

Activity

After the reading and discussion, students take part in projects that reinforce concepts—such as trust, respect and friendship—that they discussed during the story. Our activities include science, art and role-play.

Learning Objectives

Students will observe animal behavior through illustrations and use prior knowledge and experience, as well as evidence in a narrative to provide support for how an animal may be feeling; explore a variety of emotions and mixed emotions animals have, as well as emotions they may not have or may not be observable, such as: pride, guilt and judgement.
Students will, in the context of a narrative, analyze and understand similarities and differences between how people and animals respond to environmental and behavioral cues.
Students will relate narratives to their own lives to understand how people and animal characters in a story may feel and do things differently or the same as they would.
Students will understand how relationships with animals or people can serve as a social support; and understand how the decisions people make and how people treat others impacts individual lives, communities and society.
Students will identify and evaluate problems by weighing factors such as safety, responsibility and impact on others while developing self-motivation and self-reflection skills and applying these skills to various situations.

See full list of objectives, standards and books

Testimonials

I have been teaching for 30 years, and I wish these strategies were something I knew earlier.
Jody Bone, RedRover Readers Teacher, Golden Empire Elementary, Sacramento, CA
Just to let you know, the RedRover Readers program - and the literature it includes - has been so helpful this school year. One of my students lost her father in an accident and the stories have helped her open up and actually deal with her emotions.
Anika Swisher, Teacher, West Sacramento, CA
What I love about the RedRover program is that at this age, students are so into animals, and the program maximizes teaching empathy to animals to teach empathy to people or vice versa.
Theresa Molyneux, RedRover Readers Teacher, Oakridge Elementary School, Sacramento, CA
This curriculum helped my students show compassion to others. Highly recommend it to other educators.
Brett Glennon, RedRover Readers Educator, Marshall Elementary, Stockton, CA