Content Category: Lead Literacy
Results
Rethinking Homework
Paul Janeczko’s poems are some of my favorites to share with students when I am introducing a poetry unit. I am sad that he passed away recently. Publishers Weekly published...
Defining the Principal’s Role
Jennifer Schwanke talks about the importance of school leaders building a sense among teachers and families of how literacy is the foundation for all learning in classrooms.
Coaching Minute: Building Coach and Specialist Collaboration
Cathy Mere and Kelly Hoenie talk about the importance of more collaboration between literacy coaches and reading specialists, and how to foster it.
Blind Spots
My wife’s text message was not what I wanted to see. “The dryer’s not working. Gives me some weird code.” Weird code = something I probably cannot fix. That the...
The Power of a Rant
“Teachers work so hard each day. They walk out of school burdened with book bags weighted down with stacks and stacks of student papers to read and respond to at...
What Do We Mean by Coachable?
My youngest son recently tried out for and earned a spot on a travel basketball team. As we mused about what being on the team would entail (how many practices,...
Field Notes: Stories and Courage
When we deny the story, it defines us. When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending. Brene Brown Monon Trail Elementary School built a new...
Identity and Coaching
What happens when you consider yourself good at something and then your skill is questioned? For example, I consider myself a champion chocolate chip cookie baker, but when I brought...
Enticing Teachers to Write
The teachers who grow the most in the art of teaching writers are teachers who write. More than anything else, I know supporting a teacher in being a teacher who...
Talk in a Fifth-Grade Girls’ Book Club
Tammy Mulligan leads a demonstration small group designed to help fifth-grade girls talk more thoughtfully and naturally in a book club. The demonstration includes a planning session and debrief with...
Literacy Morning Announcements
As a young student, I loved the morning announcements. There was something exciting about listening to the voices come through the loudspeaker to welcome me to the day. I remember...
Never Again
I was coming home from a conference in Chicago when I saw a familiar site: a hotel that served as a meeting place for my family when I was growing...
Coaching Minute: Using Video with Literacy Coaches
Cathy Mere shares four quick tips to help literacy coaches use video thoughtfully in professional development and hone their own instructional skills.
Creative Reading Responses: It Begins with You
I am part of a teacher book club where we gather together in person and online to read children’s literature selections: picture books, early chapter books, nonfiction selections, young adult...
March Read-Aloud Madness
I am always looking for ways to introduce teachers to new books to read aloud to their students. I have given book talks, displayed titles, and even created book tastings...
Helping Teachers Use Their Writing in Instruction
Early in my career, Katie Wood Ray offered this advice to a room full of teachers. It changed me. She said, "I believe we all should make a commitment to...
Analyzing Student Work: Beginning with Strengths
“I don’t even know where to start,” she mutters under her breath as her eyes widen at the sight and her shoulders slump. They lie there, a stack of notes...
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...
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...
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...
An Ounce of Doubt
In my daily instructional walks, visiting classroom after classroom and engaging in the teaching and learning, I have started getting more interested in the why behind our practices. One area...
