The Magic of Social Stories

When was the last time you handled a large transition well? In the last year, I got engaged, moved across the country, joined a new church, and started a new job. Wouldn’t it be nice if there had been a book guiding me through the entire process? A story outlining exactly how it was going to go? Yeah, I would have liked a heads-up. Instead, the learning curve was BRUTAL.

Let’s now take a step back and think about our students. A large transition could be to go from one activity to another or to stop free time and go into working mode. A much larger transition happens when our students move from one grade or school to another. I taught high school life skills, and a huge transition that approaches with our Seniors is “What are they going to do after high school?” In my case, there were a few vocational programs at various levels of independence.

I spent a lot of the year preparing students for this big change, but what really sealed the deal and got my students ready to graduate high school was a social story about graduation. I introduced my senior students to the social story a few months before graduation. Some of my students read the story with no problems. Others struggled to grasp the large transition ahead, and that is OKAY! That’s where handy-dandy repetition comes into play. We read that “graduation book” day after day, and talked about what the transition meant for them. You wanna know something? That idea of graduating slowly got easier for my students. By the time the day came, they walked across the stage like champs!

I’ve created social stories for my classroom, going over topics such as Listening to the Teacher, Trying Your Best on an Assignment, and Waiting in Line to teach on Fridays. I’m so thankful for social stories in my classroom, and the positive difference they make in the lives of our students.