Content Category: Lead Literacy
Results
Making the Most of Monthly Common Planning Times
We were about to enter a new year, a time for a fresh start for meetings with grade-level groups. Heather (my coaching partner) and I put ourselves in the shoes...
A Timesaver for Coaching Cycles
Time is a precious resource in schools today. As coaches we want to support the individual interests and needs of each teacher. To do that, we need time to connect,...
Data Mining Before a Coaching Cycle
Over the course of my coaching, I have become more and more student-centered. Whenever I embark on a formal coaching cycle, I do some data mining before I even meet...
Teachers Who Write
I always wanted to be a writer. As a little girl, I kept notebooks and folders filled with loose-leaf pages of my latest novel. I wrote a lot of haunted-house...
Making Fiction Writing Come to Life
We need to find a way to get our writers talking more. We need to get our writers elaborating in their stories. We need a way to make fiction writing...
A Chartbook Tour
During my years of working with teachers, one of my most valuable tools has been the sketchbook that contains my charts. I’m actually on my third rendition, not because I...
Coaching Minute: Literacy Master Document
Kathy Provost and Heather Fisher explain how the Literacy Master Document has simplified and improved their coaching.
Beanstalk Play for Literacy
Clare Landrigan works with a kindergarten group to foster literacy through play in this demonstration small group. The lesson includes a prebrief and debrief with the teacher.
200 Feet
It was a personal mission at my previous school to provide students with as much access to books as possible. Two hundred feet from a book at any one time...
Reigniting Your Coaching Schedule in December
It happens. That moment when you glance at your calendar and current cycles of coaching are ending and there isn’t much scheduled in the way of new work. This is...
Demonstration Small Group: Note Taking and Text Structure
Tammy Mulligan helps fourth graders develop note-taking skills in this demonstration small group. The lesson includes a prebrief and debrief with the teacher.
Recipes and Lesson Plans: Process and Practice
Fitness and cooking are the interests I most often use as analogies when I work with new teachers. Nothing original there, I admit. It’s almost too easy to compare interval...
Stop Paying in Quarters: Changing Thinking and Practice
In my drive to La Porte, Indiana, for a writing retreat, I was prepared for the interstate tolls. Sitting on the seat next to me was a small pile of...
Advice for a New Coach
We have a new instructional coach in our office this year. Four of us share the space, and three of us have been working in classrooms for a few years....
Professional Development with 10 for 10
Each year we join an event that celebrates books. The Picture Book 10 for 10 event is hosted twice a year by Choice Literacy contributors Cathy Mere and Mandy Robek....
The Failures of a Doughnut
A good doughnut can do a lot of things. Good things. It can improve a lousy mood, take care of a craving, or jump-start a great day. What can’t doughnuts...
Parent Bulletin Board
At a recent meeting with one of the principals I work with, she described how she wants to use some of the bulletin board space in her front hallway to...
Celebrate the Process
It’s time to celebrate. Excitement is buzzing through the air. First-grade writers are standing proudly by their informational chapter books, pointing out important information for their audience. Parents and other...
Teaching Students at Their Own Level
My husband and I both play tennis. He is better than I am. In fact, the first time we ever played, we played a set, and I did not win...
Making Standards Work for You
Like anything adopted wholesale in education, I approach the Common Core State Standards with trepidation. Yes, the expectations for what is to be learned at the end of each grade...
Learning Targets
For me, one of the most frustrating things about teaching is when I give a great lesson, or one that I think is great, and then none of the work...
