Content Category: Lead Literacy
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Fourth-Grade Advanced Readers: Demonstration Lesson
Kathy Provost helps a fourth-grade teacher support advanced readers in a demonstration small group. This is the second video in a three-part series.
Fourth-Grade Advanced Readers: Debrief
Kathy Provost debriefs with a fourth-grade teacher after supporting advanced readers in a demonstration small group. This is the final video in a three-part series.
Speech/Language Pathology and Literacy: Making Connections
Throughout the course of a school year, teachers who have some concerns about a particular student often approach me to talk it through. They may tell me they feel something...
Coach and Principal Relationships
Clarity creates competence. Richard DuFour One of the first questions a new instructional coach asked me was “Who’s on my team?” Her question gave me pause because I was...
Preparing Teachers for Reading Over Breaks
I have been following the clean eating trend for quite some time and finally took concrete steps to clean up my diet to better protect my health and well-being. I...
Evaluation Season
We just finished hunting season in my hometown. This is a lovely time of year, with hints of winter peeking through sunshine and crackly leaves. But there is a lot...
Building from Strengths
“It’s going to be a wonderful day.” When I wake up, before I even get out of bed, I try to say those words to myself. I feel silly, but...
More Productive Workshops
As we turn the corner from the beginning of the year, many writing workshops become humming hives of productivity and progress, and some don’t quite get off the ground. What...
Building Specialist Capacity
Specialized teachers and paraprofessionals are tremendous resources for classrooms, and the many adults who work in schools want to teach meaningful lessons to students. They just don’t know how. One...
Breathe
Every now and again, just as I’m feeling confident and sure of my skills as a leader, someone will come along and do something so simple, so perfectly appropriate, that...
Build More Lingering into Coaching
I recently spent some time at the counter of my local bank. I had misplaced my ATM card and was requesting a new one. What I thought was going to...
Making Meetings Purposeful
We’ve all heard the jokes and complaints: When I die, I hope it’s in a meeting. That way, the transition from life to death will be barely noticeable. I just...
First-Grade Team: Exploring Student Engagement
Heather Fisher leads a first-grade team monthly meeting where everyone shares strategies they are trying for fostering more student engagement.
Being Selfish About Meeting Norms
Writing norms helps create groups that are able to have honest discussions that enable everyone to participate and be heard. Joan Richardson I have found myself thinking about the...
The Children Are Communicating. Are We Listening?
“Look at this photo of Cutie Jarius!” Erin’s email read. And there he was, standing proudly in front of “Morning Message” scrawled in a kindergarten hand. Robert Fulghum says all...
Coaching Minute: Case Study Observation Form
Literacy coaches Heather Fisher and Kathy Provost talk about how their work with reading specialists has evolved by having the specialists focus on case studies of individual students, rather than...
Who Are “They”? Word Choice and Student Learning
Like many of us, I first became a student of words with Peter Johnston’s Choice Words; he taught me how even subtleties in language have powerful effects. More recently, my...
A Yearlong Coaching Calendar
I took a deep breath and positioned my fingers over the keyboard. It was the beginning of November, and it was time. I had just completed two successful coaching cycles...
When Teachers Design the Professional Development Calendar
Sometimes professional development creeps up on us. All of a sudden, we have a three-hour chunk of time with a group of teachers, and we grapple with how to plan...
Coaching in Classrooms with English Language Learners
Dear Stella, I’m struggling to find ways to help ELLs in the classroom. Sometimes you just don’t know what you don’t know. I know best literacy practices, but is that...
Do or Die
Don’t be shy about asking for help. It doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re strong. Last spring, a panic-stricken teacher I have worked with informally entered my office. His...
