Content Category: Lead Literacy
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Coaching Minute: Notes and Forms
Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan explain the value of using the same notetaking forms teachers use with students as they coach teachers. The practice not only informs their coaching, but...
How Teacher Evaluation Can Support School-Wide Change
Can we leverage teacher evaluation systems to support school-wide change? For example, if our goal is an effective and engaging ELA curriculum, in what ways might formal observations help implementation?...
Harnessing the Power of Change
Camping, real camping, the kind with tents and sleeping bags and stiff backs . . . I don’t really know why I subject myself and my two young sons, Ben and...
Coaching Minute: Better Communication
Literacy coach Jen Court explains how she works to support better communication about literacy instruction in her school.
Trending Hashtags: Finding Priorities in a Unit of Study
Outside of trust, getting to a goal that matters is arguably the most critical element for any coaching relationship. The goal has to be powerful and student focused, and it...
Listening and Learning from Literature
As a child, I lived in a world where everyone shared the same skin color, and I never questioned my place in the world. I lived in a world where...
Cheering On Teachers Through Seasons of Change
Kindness is choosing to acknowledge and celebrate the beauty in others, regardless of whether or not they can find it in themselves. —RAKtivist “I feel like a new teacher!”a veteran...
From a Coaching Vision to a Coaching Menu
I first heard the whispering of literacy coaching back in my very first year of teaching. The gifted and talented teacher worked with a few of my students each week,...
Hidden Gems: Five Ways to Keep Your Positive Vibes
Use your smile to change the world. Don’t let the world change your smile.—Unknown How do you keep yourself so positive in your coaching role? This question has been posed...
Measure for Measure
Measure in love. —Jonathan Larson (from the musical Rent) I remember the first time we took Liam to the pediatrician. After the waiting and the weighing and measuring and prodding...
Leaders Need Coaches Too
I received a Linkedin message from an educational consultant, wondering if I was looking for a leadership coach. “No, I'm already working with someone right now, but thank you.” He...
Coaching Minute: Language of Reading
In this brief video, Cathy Mere talks with Andrea, a literacy coach and reading specialist, about the importance of common language during debrief sessions when talking about reading.
Saying No
Before leaving work, I sat down to review the various meetings I'd attended and the tasks I'd done that day, jotting a few notes and follow-up emails I needed to...
Maintenance as Leadership
Every August, a calendar event reminds me to check for hornets' nests on the playground. I go outside and investigate each slide, swing set, and jungle gym, sometimes kicking equipment...
Coaching Minute: What About Reluctant Teachers?
Literacy coach Jen Court finds the best way to ease into a cycle with a reluctant teacher is to focus on the students and data. She also works to build...
Coaching in a Time of Crisis
The other day I got online to see a post from an educational leader in which he shared 10 learning practices to avoid in remote teaching. The list was 10...
They Don’t Know High-Frequency Words
The team gathers around the table with their stacks of writing, and teachers sort their stacks into three piles. The middle stack is the writing that seems to be right...
Flipping Negative Stressors
One summer, in a frigid conference room in suburban Florida, I stood in front of a room full of educators to discuss how to manage the stresses of being an...
Word Study Half-Day Professional Development
Word study is one part of the balanced literacy puzzle, and it takes a long time to go deep and wide in understanding. A lot of times we assess students...
Vocabulary Development in Writing
“You guys have a picture of a bunny in the grass. It looks like he’s moving. What is he doing?” The kindergartners looked at the picture for a few more...
Creating Savory Professional Development
Ralph Fletcher shares in Joy Write, “Play in writing is not just a nice idea—it’s essential.” Amy Krouse Rosenthal imagined that the perfect fiction writer has a “penchant for collaboration...
