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Coaching Minute: Flexible Collaboration with Teachers
Cathy Mere chats with Kelly Hoenie about how her collaboration with teachers has changed over 15 years of coaching—from rigid protocols to in-the-moment decisions about how best to support each...
Picture Books to Teach Digital Citizenship
My daughter and I were reading together recently, sitting side by side on the couch. She sighed, closed her book, and said, “Well, lesson learned there!” I smiled, and we...
Supporting Readers: It Takes a Team
When readers need additional support and are placed in reading intervention, our hope is always for this support to be short term. Ideally, children will enter intervention, get the support...
An All-School Writing Project: Six-Word Memoirs
I’ve long heard inspiring stories about schools who adopted a “One Book, One School” experience, exposing all students to a text and then using it to launch conversations and connections....
Quick and Frequent Demonstration Lesson: Phonemes
Clare Landrigan leads a demonstration lesson with a pair of kindergarten students who struggle with letter-sound connections. She explains why these "quick and frequent" activities are helpful for young learners...
The Importance of Correct Examples
I have not had many struggles with spelling and conventions in my life. That being said, there are a couple of words I know are hard for me. Embarrass is...
The Magic That Might Go Down
In her TED Talk, author Susan Conley tells a story about leading writing workshops for students. She explains that during one of her sessions a particularly intense student asked, “Why...
What Happens Next Is What Defines Us
My own children have been my greatest teachers. For me, one of the most challenging aspects of parenting has been to help pick them up after a disappointing event in...
Building Habits with Short-Term Goals
During the first two of weeks of writing this school year, we were busy teaching “gathering” minilessons to help students fill their heads and notebooks with writing. Since our first...
Beyond Plot: Conferring with Ian
Andrea Smith confers with fourth grader Ian, who is plowing through a book series. She helps him look at the bigger picture of characters, themes, and how the series might...
Reset
I am spoiled by my DVR. I can sit down and watch my favorite shows whenever I want. I can even skip over commercial breaks. However, every now and then,...
When Students Set Intentions
One of the things my yoga instructor always says at the beginning of class is “Set an intention.” Our intention could be to focus, or maybe to work on a...
Sharing Writing in a Class Celebration
Does celebration matter? Is celebration essential to the business of developing meaningful, conventional, and powerful writers? When there is more to teach and meeting all the needs of students as...
Celebrations Across the Year
“Any quick wins?” I inquired as we began to get our bimonthly meeting of literacy coaches underway. Quick wins as described in Read, Write, Lead: Breakthrough Strategies for Schoolwide Success...
The Power of Similes
Write a good simile for me. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Not so easy, right? You can come up with a bad simile in a minute or two or rattle off...
Past Midnight
—remembering Eva she rides a river of words like a floater in a rip tide. Rogue waves strain for space outside the breaking zone. ...
Poetry Connections
Every day at the start of class my coteacher would remind him to take down his hood. He ducked his head inside the hood-cave even farther before reluctantly pulling it...
Finding Time for Classroom Walk-Throughs
As school leaders, we know our time is precious. It can be hard to prioritize our days with all the duties we are expected to complete. At the top of...
Tackling Coaching Challenges
One of Merriam-Webster's dictionaries defines a nemesis as a "formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent." As a literacy coach, I find that my biggest nemesis is professional development. I...
Open Observations
As literacy coaches, we are always talking about ways to help teachers give ownership to learners. There are constant conversations about opening the door for students to make their own...
Encouraging Teachers to Write
“You use your own notebook a lot during conferences,” Mrs. Bean said to me. I looked up from writing conference notes and considered her statement. “Yes, that’s true.” “So I...
