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
Making the Case for Literacy Coaches
It's that time of year. School districts are examining their budgets for the upcoming school year. Due to the troubled economy, many of them are finding that they are not...
Learning from Coaching Mistakes
Inventors understand that early prototypes inform them best about what doesn't work rather than what does. But what about when prototypes are people? It's difficult for me not to feel...
My Colleague Refuses to Collaborate with Us (LITERACY COACH CONFIDENTIAL)
A literacy coach writes to us with the question: How do you work with a teacher who refuses to be a collaborative part of a team? She does her own...
Implementing RTI: Keeping Students at the Heart of Our Conversations
The success of any RTI initiative will rest largely on the ability of the teachers to select appropriate instructional activities based on the diagnostic evidence each student provides at the...
A Coach’s Perspective: Is Sarcasm in Style This Season?
"What surprises you when you hear me read your lesson aloud?" I asked Courtney* in our debrief. "Well, I guess, it sounds like I'm rude to the students. . .at...
There’s Been a Misblunderstanding
If you aren't already familiar with Becky Botsford (aka WordGirl) and her sidekick Captain Huggy Face on PBS's Word Girl http://pbskids.org/wordgirl, you should check out her powers. Even if you don't...
How to Use a Coach: Four Things to Consider
When my husband and I rented the movie Slum Dog Millionaire, I hid my eyes frequently during the first thirty minutes. Completely unprepared for the on-screen violence, I asked Kurt to...
How to Be of Use: Starting Strong
During my summer, I've been working with my 10-year-old daughter on her conventions in general and her spelling in particular. I'm constantly on the lookout for fun ways to motivate...
The DIBELS Divide (LITERACY COACH CONFIDENTIAL)
Literacy Coach Confidential is Choice Literacy's forum for answering the toughest questions literacy coaches and teachers face as they work together. Our contributors respond to the questions anonymously, which enables them...
Triangulating: The Importance of Multiple Data Points When Assessing Students
We went to a professional development session a few years ago with Elizabeth City and she gave us a name for something we have always believed - the importance of...
A Coach’s Perspective: No More Flying Pig Prompts
Leslie's Story It was spring when I met with Leslie*. She had invited me to her classroom to try out some problem solving with her students. She was in her...
The Over-Prompting of Young Writers
I have been teaching long enough to remember a time before our large-scale state writing assessment when the word "prompt" wasn't connected to writing. Yet after receiving our first set...
Tips for More Effective Debriefing Sessions
We do a lot of demonstration lessons in our coaching work. Lately we have been reflecting on how we structure these sessions. We find the debriefing of the lesson to...
Literacy Coach Confidential: My Colleague Talks Too Much!
I lead professional development workshops and study groups at my school, and we have a new faculty member who is such a talker -- she's pleasant and bright, but so...
What’s the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About…?
We've been meeting each week this spring with a group of teachers pre-K through grade 12, all of us exploring literacy teaching in our classrooms around our teacher research questions....
Read Our Walls: Bridging Professional Development and Student Achievement
How do we connect professional development to student learning? Does it really matter that teachers change instructional practices if we can't demonstrate these questions lead to increased student achievement? These...
Troubleshooting Coaching Cycles
Last summer, we were fortunate to host Diane Sweeney at our coaching summer institute. Diane introduced us to the idea of coaching cycles. She assured us that coaching cycles would...
Back to the Classroom
The evening before the last literacy coaching network meeting of the year, I opened my email and found a message from Lydia. She said that she was thinking about skipping...
Reflecting on Student Work in Staff Meetings (TEMPLATE)
Over the last four years our teaching staff has included reflecting on student work as a part of our staff meetings. To be honest, we struggled for probably three of...
Starting the School Year: A Checklist for Literacy Coaches
It occurred to me at the beginning of last year that there are certain tasks I do each fall to organize myself for the work of the upcoming year. Over...
From Congeniality to Collegiality: Protocols for Meetings and Observations
While we all want to assume that the friendly conversations in the lunchroom and the congenial planning of field trips and homework indicate that teaching teams work collaboratively, we know...
