Choice Lit Topic: Literacy Coaches
A simple question – who will coach the coaches? If you’re a literacy coach, you already know there is no job more amazing or overwhelming in a school. Our Choice Literacy library includes a small sample of our resources for literacy coaches. If you work as a coach, you’ll want a subscription that includes access to our Leaders Lounge, where there are over 900 resources for coaches, including study group protocols, videos of demonstration lessons, and guides for designing coaching cycles.
Results
Letting Go and Holding On: Evaluating Our Work as Literacy Coaches
As a literacy coach, I am very interested in the progress of our students and value that data as an indicator of the success of my work. I also solicit...
The Language of Coaching Part I: Word Choices
Giving written and spoken feedback is an opportunity to be very thoughtful about the words we choose in communicating with teachers. This is a challenge. There are nuances to our...
Literacy Coaching Interview Rubric
The "Literacy Coaching Interview Rubric" was designed collaboratively with colleagues who are preparing to become literacy coaches. We talked through the different philosophies in school communities about the purposes and...
How Study Groups Are Like Self-Cleaning Ovens
One of our favorite inventions ever is the self-cleaning oven. Set a timer, lock the oven door, and a few hours later -- voila! You have a clean oven, and...
The Language of Coaching Part II: The Leading Edge
Peter Johnston has written an entire book about the subtleties of our communications. In Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning (Stenhouse, 2004), Johnston explores the places where work is partially...
Got Space?
As a literacy coach in grades 3-5, one of my most important roles is that of a resource provider. I am continually on the hunt for good new reading and...
Two or Three Things I Know for Sure: A Teacher Workshop Activity
"Two or Three Things I Know for Sure" is a writing and discussion activity designed to help teachers write about and explain their bedrock beliefs about teaching or other related...
Demonstration Lesson: Inferring Character Traits
In this demonstration lesson from a 5th grade classroom, Clare Landrigan leads students through a reading and discussion of inference and character development. Clare uses the book Childtimes by Eloise...
Solving Problems Quote Collection
When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail. Abraham Maslow Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to...
Grade Level Team Meeting: Test Preparation
In this video of a 3rd grade team meeting, literacy coaches Janet Scott and Gail Boushey help third-grade teachers think through what is going well with test preparation, and what...
Books That Touch the Heart
A recent coaches' networking meeting was derailed by an experience shared by one of the coaches. Sandy was helping a group of sixth-grade teachers put together a text set on...
Picking a Partner: Demonstration Lesson and Debrief
In this demonstration lesson from a K-2 classroom, Joan Moser leads students through guided practice in picking a partner. In the debrief with Natalie, Joan talks through issues and...
Making the Rounds: Visiting Everyone
Anyone who knows me would say that I have a "Type A" personality. In some situations this has served me well, in others it has made life complicated. I am...
Notetaking Strategies Part I: “In the Midst” and “After the Fact” Notes
Memory is made as a quilt is made. From the whole cloth of time, frayed scraps of sensation are pulled apart and pieced together in a pattern that has a...
Coaching in Kindergarten: Conferring
What's in a name? For kindergartner Maria, it's the start of learning how letters and sounds work. In this coaching session, Joan Moser of "The Sisters" helps Daniel understand how...
Literacy Chats: An Open Discussion Format
In my school, the teachers have monthly "literacy chats" to discuss current trends and issues that arise in our classrooms. These are informal discussions designed to help us build a...
Case Studies in Professional Learning Communities
In this brief video, Literacy Coach Pam Hahlen and Principal Karen Szymusiak meet with two teachers in a professional learning community group to discuss ongoing case studies. The meeting takes...
Chatting About Coaching Collaboration
Gail Boushey and Janet Scott discuss how they collaborate as coaches, sharing strategies and common goals across the classrooms they work in.
Quick Take: Protocols for Teacher Study Groups
In this three-minute Quick Take video, Clare Landrigan describes the teacher study group protocol she uses to foster shared understanding and allow for differentiated learning among teachers.
From Compliments to Naming the Craft: Fifth-Grade Writing Workshop Share Session
This whole-class share session in Lesley Fowler's fifth-grade classroom is the culmination of a nonfiction writing unit. Over the course of the year, we moved from having students compliment their...
Conferring Notebook for Coaches
I am always on the hunt for new ways to reorganize the records I keep as a literacy coach. I want to be sure I have good records of encounters...
