Content Category: Lead Literacy
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Failure to Thrive: Rethinking Assessment Binders
"Let's put together a binder for teachers that holds all the important assessment things they need. Let's make them color coded by grade level. And let's give them to every...
Literacy Day
My suburban Ohio city is lucky enough to have excellent snow-removal crews, so my district leaders are typically able to avoid canceling school for inclement weather. Not so this year....
Coaching Minute: Ending the Day
Heather Rader shares a quick video tip about the importance of closing rituals at the end of the coaching day. A transcript is available below the player. Writers know...
Celebration Charts
Ruth Ayres, a Choice Literacy contributor, hosts a weekly meme on the web called Celebrate. We have been trying to share the spirit of celebration in our staff development sessions....
Coaching Minute: Birthday Tip
Heather Rader has a quick video tip for organizing low-stress birthday celebrations for colleagues. A transcript is available below the player. Most people like to be remembered...
Coaching Minute: Reading Habits
Heather Rader explains why professional reading needs to be a priority for literacy coaches in this quick video. A transcript is available below the player. Do...
Courage to Change: A Professional Development Activity
We love to use picture books to inspire conversation around change in our leadership meetings. Recently we tried a new book and loved how it worked. We used Courage...
Just Tell Me! Evaluation and the Coach’s Dilemma
Coaches are not evaluators. We are a teacher's side-by-side partner; a confidential listener, encouraging teachers to take risks, helping them to hone their skills to become the best teacher for...
Above the Clouds
The few days before my trip to Boston had been stormy, dreary, and overcast. I knew the forecast predicted rain at my destination, but as I was leaving for the...
Coaching Minute: Waiting to Respond
Heather Rader explains the WAIT strategy for responding to challenging email in this quick video tip. Email can be both a connector and a disconnector. Some colleagues...
Drop the Rope
Change is hard. Coaching change is even harder. Those moments of tension we experience can be brutal. We feel defensive, hurt, or even useless. How do we find the strength...
Leadership 101: Knowing When to Step Back
My school literacy team met last week. The literacy team includes specialists and grade-level team leaders. The agenda was a typical one: Our media specialist shared new books available in...
Coaching Conversations: Easing Your Way into Positive Relationships
In this conversation, Sharon Thompson chats with Brenda Power about how important it is for new coaches to listen, and the hazards of going where you aren't wanted. A full...
Demonstration Lesson: Reading Response in Notebooks
Tammy Mulligan leads a demonstration small group with fourth graders on writing responses to reading. The session includes a prebrief and debrief with the fourth-grade teaching team.
Is the Pain Worth the Gain?
As any teacher knows, the way to internalize standards is to use them in the classroom. We can read, unpack, dig into, compare, and “essentialize” the new Common Core standards...
Coaching Minute: Professional Development
Deb Gaby talks about the importance of professional development mirroring best practices in this quick video.
Picture It: Mentoring Organization
Here you see Mandy Robek has sorted her markers into color bins so kindergarten students can easily find what they need and return it to the right place. Valuable teaching...
Writing Conference Role-Plays: Learning to Listen In
In the writing process, the teacher and student face the task of making meaning together. They start on a trip of exploration together. They find out where they are going...
Everyone Needs a Carly
This is kind of one of those “I’m leaving the classroom” pieces. But it isn’t. This “leaving the classroom” piece, mercifully, is driven not by the demons of standardization, defunding,...
Coaching Minute: Set Your Alarm
Heather Rader has a tip for ensuring you stay on schedule and "in the moment" during your meetings in this brief video tip. A transcript is available below the player....
Classroom Visits for Professional Development Insight
Have you ever seen the people at the mall with clipboards, pestering every person who walks by, asking them for five minutes of their time to take a survey? Have...
