Soaring Eagle Academy’s curriculum and its development were guided by several principles:

1. Curriculum should be meaningful to each student. The student’s interests should guide their direction of learning.
2. Curriculum should be developmentally appropriate. The level of learning should be matched to their regulatory capacities, social and emotional capacities, motor capacities, comprehension abilities and expressive language capacities.
3. Curriculum should be experiential. Students should experience any and all concepts, related to their learning in order to develop deep and lasting

SEA offers an individualized and research-based curriculum with the strongly held belief that all students have the right to access a rich academic curriculum appropriate to their individual learning style and developmental levels, while also supporting functional life skills and vocational job skills. Students receive instruction in accordance with the courses that they are enrolled in.  All coursework is aligned to the  Illinois Learning Standards. SEA has a course catalog listing the courses and program standards offered.

SEA takes a developmental approach to curriculum for each student that takes into account what students should learn and how they best learn changes with each developmental stage and the experiences that come within their developmental stage. The curriculum used is continuously adapted for each individual student in order to accommodate the students’ current developmental level, their individual learning differences, and their previous experiences around the materials. Learning is maximized through interactive and active processes and by creating meaningful experiences unique to each student profile.

Students are encouraged to develop at their own pace and within their own level. Learning is supported by building on previous knowledge and experiences offering students the opportunity to work on topics over extended periods of time. Student learning occurs in both small group settings and in individual stations. Participating in small group learning gives them the opportunity to be introduced to new skills and concepts with peer model and discussion opportunities in a multi-sensory environment. The students then take what they have learned to their individual stations where they will deepen their understanding by reviewing, practicing, and expanding on concepts taught. Instruction in both small groups and in individual stations are scaffolded to support understanding and practice of curriculum but also is integral to supporting tiered learning and creating opportunities for extension activities.

Each student at SEA receives a highly individualized daily lesson plan that is specific to their learning level, sensory profile, individual strengths and challenges, that also supports their developmental level of emotional and intellectual functioning. Each student’s interests are honored within every learning opportunity. Based on this knowledge, student’s individualized curriculum is generated by integration of the student’s natural interests, Developmental Language models, principles of the DIR®/Floortime™ approach and Illinois Learning Standards, Individual Goals and Benchmarks. Soaring Eagle Academy’s philosophy of education is that all curriculum be experienced in the contextual environment, in order to be meaningful and integrated with prior conceptual knowledge. Each student’s interests are honored within every learning opportunity.

Soaring Eagle Academy developed and adopted various curriculum components based on the importance of affect and experience in learning and offers aa robust course catalog where classes are chosen for students based on individual need and capacities.    SEA believes that children learn best when they are well-regulated, able to share attention with their communicative partner and/or teacher and are emotionally invested in the learning. When children are interested and emotionally invested in material, their capacity to be present for the experience and to be taught is heightened. Multi-sensory experiences lead to meaningful learning, which in turn creates better comprehension of material and regulation in children.

LITERACY

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Sample SEA Literacy Concept Curriculum

Soaring Eagle Academy’s literacy curriculum encompasses the following areas: phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, fluency, vocabulary development, comprehension of written material, spelling, grammar, use and mechanics, expressive/creative writing and a concept group that supports the literacy books chosen each month.

The Superkids reading program is a comprehensive reading and language arts curriculum with phonics at its core. It provides meaningful and engaging content while providing systematic phonics-based instruction. Soaring Eagle adapts Superkids to meet the needs of each individual student’s profile to maximize their learning. Heggerty Phonemic Awareness, Earobics, and Phonemic Awareness Lab (App) serve to support our students’ ability to develop phonemic awareness and emerging phonics skills. 

To supplement reading and language arts, students engage in a range of novel studies chosen for their developmental level and comprehension capacities. Novels are explored in groups to promote reading and thinking together about the content. Many of the individualized lessons also incorporate news articles, biographies and other forms of informational text as they pertain to the content to be taught and the interests of the student.  Developmentally ready students also receive vocabulary and comprehension instruction through Word Wisdom. Word Wisdom offers informational text passages to provide context for targeted vocabulary words.  The lessons then embed understanding of the context through examples directly related to the students’ own experiences.  Students then demonstrate their comprehension of the vocabulary through the application of the words within sentences or short paragraphs.  Reading A-Z is also utilized as a supplement to our reading program offering hundreds of titles from pre-k through the high school level.  Fiction and nonfiction passages from a wide range of topics provide teachers with the opportunity to weave in the interests and prior knowledge of their students to create engaging and robust individualized lessons.

SEA additionally facilitates writing instruction using SQ Sentence and SQ Write and Strategies for Writers, depending on each student’s developmental levels.  SQ Write/ Sentence uses executive functioning based learning tools to support the hierarchy of writing following a precise sequence.  SQ Write aims to support students in asking themselves effective questions related to writing.  These questions then guide the writing process to generate ideas for a complete and organized essay.  Students are taught a systematic way to brainstorm ideas and organize their thoughts to create effective writing samples. Strategies for Writers is another comprehensive K-8 curriculum that focuses on the traits for effective writing across subject areas/ text styles (narrative, opinion, how-to, research reports, etc.). For students who are developmentally ready, Strategies for Writers facilitates the writing process and focuses on: introducing a topic clearly, organizing ideas, logically supporting claims, and maintaining a formal text style.  Students are also given opportunities to review and edit peers work as part of the writing process. Writing progress is measured through assessments at the end of each unit.  Students writing samples are scored using a rubric measuring: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation.

The language concept groups centered around children’s literature is unique to Soaring Eagle Academy’s literature curriculum. Taking the literacy recommendations from the Common Core, books are chosen to support a student’s exposure to a range of books and their language development. Each month, a book is explored with students. The books are adapted to teach at the level of the student. Concepts are experienced over the course of an entire week. Early learners will experience the concept in tangible and sensory-based ways. Later learners will learn about concepts while problem solving, making inferences, predicting and critically thinking. Literacy projects are designed to integrate all developmental capacities. The monthly concept group is based on developmental language theory that seeks to promote deep comprehension of concepts and words that children are exposed to throughout their day. The groups are designed to allow for new conceptual learning across different contexts throughout the week to build bigger and more full experiential meaning. The group dynamic is an important part of this work. We want children to experience the concepts with their peers, to be able to watch and observe others enacting and experiencing the concept and to interact with multiple partners through this experience. If a student already understands the concept, they may serve as a model to others, which is just as important. Students may understand the concept in one context but not in many. In addition, they may “look” as if they understand the concept because they have great comprehension strategies that appear to us, as adults, that they understand. To understand through linguistic means, the child needs many experiences, many matches and many opportunities to explore and act on in their world to make a deeper meaning and a truer connection.

MATH

Soaring Eagle Academy’s math curriculum utilizes the ORIGO Stepping Stones Mathematics (ORIGO) program. ORIGO is a developmentally appropriate math program for K-6th grade and is aligned to support all state standards. It was derived from research that points to developmental models of how children learn math in the most effective and efficient ways and designed to engage students in their learning, while helping them to develop a deeper conceptual understanding of mathematics. It allows for hands on experiential learning, which is a key learning principle at SEA, while supporting the understanding of the “language of math” that aligns with our developmental language model thinking. Whole class, small group, differentiation, investigation and problem-solving activities are provided to support thinking and conceptualizing for each unique profile of learning. Math is taught for understanding, not memorization, with meaningful learning at the heart of all activities. Math curriculum is also supported by the work of the late John Van DeWalle, “Teaching Student Centered Mathematics”, as well as Simple Solutions Common Core Math all of which extend through the 8th grade level. Students learning above the 8th grade level enroll in Prentice Hall Common Core Algebra I. This program offers units around each Big Idea of Algebra (aligned to the Common Core standards) and provides opportunities to visualize, reason and practice the skills through the use of video, interactive learning activities, think and write opportunities, and error analysis and reasoning for strategies. Differentiated Remediation Activities and additional instructional support ideas from the Algebra I Companion and Student Book support the introduction of new vocabulary, key concepts, and lesson checks.

Each module of ORIGO Stepping Stones offers formative and summative methods to assess student knowledge and skills. Simple Solutions offers quarterly summative assessments to be used as indicators of student progress throughout the course of the year.

Soaring Eagle Academy also utilizes Prentice Hall Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II, which provides built in Lesson Checks throughout each lesson to support ongoing, informal assessment. Each chapter offers formal assessment opportunities through Mid- Chapter quizzes, Pull It Together Performance Tasks, and a final Chapter Review to measure student progress.

SOCIAL SCIENCE

Soaring Eagle Academy’s social science curriculum is based on the guiding principles and ideas from Every Book is a Social Studies Book (How to meet the Standards with Picture Books, K-6) and Social Studies (All Day, Every Day in the Early Childhood Classroom). The curriculum was developed using the standards set forth by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). These standards guide our curriculum decisions by providing student performance expectations within the ten thematic strands being taught to our students.

                  The ten thematic strands include:

• Culture
• Time, continuity, and change
• People, places and environments Individual development and identity
• Individuals, groups and institutions
• Power, authority, and governance
• Production
• Distribution and Consumption Science
• Technology and Society
• Global Connections
• Civic Ideals and Practices

These ten thematic strands draw from the social science disciplines of anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion and sociology, as well as appropriate content from the humanities, mathematics and natural science.

Utilizing literature books, Soaring Eagle Academy integrates cross-curricular materials to implement the standards set forth by the NCSS. These standards guide what students should be taught, how they will be taught and how their performance will be evaluated. The standards provide criteria for making decisions about what to include in the curriculum each month.

Soaring Eagle Academy’s social science curriculum is designed to support a student’s ability to activate their prior knowledge to learn about the world around them. General goals for the course aim to include teaching students about their role in relation to social and civic matters, helping students think critically, and to help students become concerned citizens and develop a social understanding. All concepts are adapted to each individual student so that learning is meaningful and developmentally appropriate. Concepts learned are integrated into other subjects to create cross-curricular projects and maximize learning.

Teacher assessments are made based on the student’s ability to draw from the text presented and make connections, expand concepts and think critically about social and civic matters on a personal, national, and global level. Progress is measured based on a student’s ability to write, recall, and/ or discuss the content as it directly affects their own experience as a citizen.  Teacher assessments include the comprehension of curriculum assessment developed by Soaring Eagle Academy and based on the Clinical Assessment of Language Comprehension by Miller and Paul.

SCIENCE

McGraw Hill INSPIRE Science serves as the foundation of Soaring Eagle Academy’s science curriculum. INSPIRE is a research-based science curriculum for grades K-8. The program uses a developmental model of how students think and learn as they grow to choose meaningful topics and ways to explore. Content and experiments lead to discovery and application of the scientific method through the Five E’s: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate.  Teacher assessments are made based on the student’s ability to make connections, expand concepts, apply the investigative process to other unknowns and to act on the objects presented to them. The Student Journals offer records of student progress through writing prompts, reasoning strategies, and detailed explanations of the scientific process through gathering materials, collecting data and forming hypotheses. 

Science (High School only – excludes Transition students)

McGraw Hill INSPIRE Science serves as the foundation of Soaring Eagle Academy’s science curriculum. INSPIRE is a research-based science curriculum for grades K-8. The program uses a developmental model of how students think and learn as they grow to choose meaningful topics and ways to explore. Content and experiments lead to discovery and application of the scientific method through the Five E’s: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate. Teacher assessments are made based on the student’s ability to make connections, expand concepts, apply the investigative process to other unknowns and to act on the objects presented to them. The Student Journals offer records of student progress through writing prompts, reasoning strategies, and detailed explanations of the scientific process through gathering materials, collecting data and forming hypotheses.

Soaring Eagle offers Biology, Physics and Chemistry for eligible students.  These courses are taught in daily small group sessions utilizing McGraw Hill curriculum.  Students participate in experiments, class discussions, and conduct research related to the topics presented.  All content is Common Core aligned.  Curriculum- based assessments are conducted after each unit.

SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING (SEL)

As with all children and adults, we believe children with Autism develop friendships around activities of interest to them. Students are offered opportunity to participate in Social Emotional Learning (SEL) groups with SEA staff supporting the students’ individual regulatory needs whilefacilitating peer connections. SEL groups are based on students’ interests that are ever changing but may include: dance party, movement group, music group, boys’/girls’ group, interactive story group, play group, cooking group, theater group, sensory group, bubbles group, games group, and art group. This is a complex process with group location, number of participants, developmental level and natural interest of each member carefully considered, when forming and supporting groups throughout the school year. Students attend SEL groups on a daily basis and have opportunity to gain the following: ability to participate in meaningful and predictable daily peer experiences, spend time with peers of different ages across the school in different contexts, observe peers and model after them, try new experiences and activities with peers with support, be a leader with peers or take direction from a peer, show off so as to build a greater sense of self, be an active participant in choosing activities tailored for building friendships, watch, initiate, expand and contribute to peer activities, work collaboratively with peers, be part of a peer group with a contributing role and experience dynamic multi-sensory environments at the highest level of their ability to take in sensory affective experiences.

   SEL groups are led by program assistants with guidance and support from the mental health staff (counselor/social worker), occupational therapist, speech language pathologist, behavior DIR® specialist, program and teacher assistants.

ART, MUSIC and P.E.

The MUSIC program is tailored to each student’s interests, incorporating both instrumental and vocal musical experiences. Elements of music are explored and fostered through concepts that include rhythm, melody and harmony. Students learn about different types of music and instruments. Students participate in small groups, in structured and creative learning opportunities, featured to foster interest, appreciation and knowledge. A high school band has been formed to promote musical interest, while building students’ abilities to work as a group toward a common goal.

The ART program offers a wide variety of mediums and recycled materials utilized to promote creativity, self-expression, fine motor skills, meaningful art making, exploration and the use of individual imagination. Experiences offer exposure to a variety of artistic tools, principles of elements and design fundamentals and art techniques. Each child is met at their individual levels in order for them to feel successful. Art history and cultural aspects can be incorporated and explored for a higher learning experience. Art is taught in a group session allowing for the students to engage in social interaction, and at times, have the opportunity to learn from and motivate each other. All students contribute a beautiful hue to our rainbow in which they are allowed to explore and experience art without having anxiety of making mistakes. At our school, we don’t make mistakes but we embrace each other’s differences.

The P.E. curriculum is based on the Illinois Learning Standards for physical education and health set forth from the Enhanced P.E. Task Force. The standards and goals under the curricular area of physical education emphasize developing health and wellbeing through physical activity. There is an emphasis on supporting students to be able to work as individuals and as members of teams, which promotes social and emotional development at SEA. Students are able to experience and practice the motor skills related to each unit. Each skill is broken down and tailored to the developmental motor level of the student. The student is then able to experience a range of movement experiences and acquire movement patterns and locomotor skills through the predictable and developmental sequence in an individualized manner. In addition, the groups are tailored to match the overall timing, pacing and rhythmicity to promote student development in cooperative group physical activity. The PE program is designed to promote movement, exercise, interaction and fun. As the students experience positive emotional experiences through their efforts and successes with mastering physical skill competency, the students are then encouraged to participate and enjoy physical activity as a part of their school day and then as possible in the community.

ASSESSMENT

TRANSITION/VOCATIONAL

The Transition Program prepares our transition 18-21 year old students as they transition out of their school years and into adulthood. Through the collaborative efforts of a team of educators and therapists, we work with each student and his/her parents and district to  develop realistic post-school goals and plan how best to impart the skills and strategies necessary to enable the student to be as independent as possible with optimal quality of life. In accordance with IDEA requirements, the program addresses the five components of transition planning: education/vocational training, employment, independent living, recreation/leisure and community integration. All activities are presented in a dynamic and meaningful way, driven by student interests, personal strengths and developmental levels/capacities, to facilitate high interest and participation and ensure carry over of newly learned classroom skills to students’ everyday life. Program objectives are to produce young adults who can:

• Generalize the ability to stay regulated and socially engaged in “real world”
• Uncover their social, recreational and vocational
• Have increased opportunity for work sites that align with their individual differences, strengths and
• Be gainfully employed in a supported work
• Engage in a healthy lifestyle through integrated recreation/leisure
• Effectively utilize daily living skills to function as independently as
• Develop skills and coping strategies required to achieve the highest level of independence and quality of life- a life filled with meaning and purpose filled with a joy for interacting, forming relationships and ongoing

We believe that all students have the right to access a rich academic curriculum appropriate to their individual learning style and developmental levels while also supporting functional life skills and vocational job skills. The Transition Program is committed to providing students with a safe, nurturing and individualized environment in which they can learn how to integrate into their communities. Our approach in teaching through a relationship-based model allows for students to connect and make meaning of the life skills being taught through academics, daily living tasks, vocational training, and rec/leisure experiences. Program activities take place through forming relationships in the community, work sites, and other dynamic locations. We focus on the process and embrace each of our student’s interests, personal strengths and developmental levels/capacities. We provide hands on experiences on site such as micro business skills, daily living skills, exercise, art projects, and other integrated community activities. Our team of trained support staff facilitate the process of self-regulation and teach functional skills so students can work as independently as possible. Classroom teacher, therapists and 1:1 teacher assistants (job coaches) support on vocational trips, on job sites and throughout the school day. This supports the generalization of skills across a variety of people and contexts. As students’ progress, they are met with the opportunity to determine job preferences and learn to work with growing independence, while staying calm/regulated and engaged, as they make contributions in the workplace and in other public environments.

Students have opportunities to explore vocational interests and skills both on site and within the community. SEA has established partnerships with businesses in the community and is committed to seek new partnerships as the need arises, since all vocational opportunities are

individualized for each student based upon each student’s individual developmental levels, student interests and personal strengths. There is on site job coaching in the area of cleaning, organizing, office work, gardening in the school garden and working at the school store. There are offsite community experiences that may include cleaning tables and delivering food at the Patio Restaurant, garden maintenance at We Grow Dreams with students completing a timesheet and receiving a paycheck with opportunity to be hired after graduation, and stocking at Walgreens and a Pet Store with practice to report to a store manager. Life skills experiences for meal planning/cooking, hygiene, doing laundry, managing money, self-advocacy, preparing a resume/portfolio, interviewing skills, etc. can be  practiced in SEA’s Mock apartment as well as in the community.

Transition program activities will vary from student to student. While such activities among the general population are learned through trial-and- error, teens and adults with autism need significant support and practice with the calming/coping, social and communication skills necessary to perform in employment situations. Providing community-based, “real world” social, vocational, and life experiences are perhaps the most critical learning opportunities that impact the potential for ongoing independence and quality of life for an individual with autism and that is the beauty of individualized vocational training because each student presents with a different individual profile making each experience meaningful to them in their own way.