Content Category: Lead Literacy
Results
Triangulating: The Importance of Multiple Data Points When Assessing Students
We went to a professional development session a few years ago with Elizabeth City and she gave us a name for something we have always believed - the importance of...
Dear Teacher, Dear Principal
Often there is confusion about the role of an instructional coach. These letters are intended to clarify the position, as well as reveal the genuine desire of a coach to...
Ask Me – I’m Not the Expert
If nothing else, children should leave school with a sense that if they act, and act strategically, they can accomplish their goals. I call this feeling a sense of agency....
Busywork?: From Classroom Assistant to Agent of Change
It’s the day before school starts, hours before the kindergarten classrooms will be filled with parents and students excited to meet their very first teachers at a meet and greet...
Curriculum Work: Making Meaning Together
To make dreams apparent to others and to align people with them requires not just mere explanations or clarification but the creation of meaning. ...
Making Assumptions
It had been a rough morning. I'd spent the last two and a half hours in jaw-tightening silence, watching a novice teacher making misstep after misstep in his classroom. In...
Heather Sisson’s Coaching Space
Literacy coach Heather Sisson has a shelf of resources available to teachers in her coaching space. A simple checkout system puts everything from cooperative learning books to mentor texts...
Teacher and Coach Common Quiet Signals
Each teacher has one or more special signals to get students’ attention. When literacy coach Heather Rader began working with second-grade teacher Sean Moore she noted how he asked students...
Common Core Standards: Spreading the Word
As a district-level literacy coach in California, I've been given the task of helping move our system toward implementation of the Common Core Standards. We are a large urban district...
Charting Isn’t Cheating
For the first few years of my high school teaching career, every time there was a major exam I was urged to take down or cover up anything that might...
“Step Over the Line” Professional Development Icebreaker
This video of the "Step Over the Line" icebreaker activity was captured at a meeting of district-level coaches in Washington state early in the fall led by Amanda Adrian and...
Planning for a Demonstration Lesson
Clare Landrigan takes a team of grades 3-5 teachers through the steps of selecting a book for a demonstration lesson.
Same Old Books with New Intentions: Reflecting on Rigor and the Common Core
Rigor is not an attribute of a text, but rather a characteristic of our behavior with that text. Kylene Beers and Robert Probst I remember one of my first...
Picture It: Increasing Comfort with Technology
We know that technology has changed the way we access and use texts in our daily lives. Here you see both teacher- and student-generated ideas for future blog posts in...
Supporting New Teachers and Appreciating Their Gifts
The research is clear and the statistics are grim. The most important factor that influences student achievement is the skill of the teacher, yet we lose more than 50 percent...
Overwhelmed Coach
Everyone in education feels overwhelmed from time to time. Coaches can feel extremely stretched at particular times throughout the year. The months of November and March are the most intense...
Coaching Minute: On the Go Follow-Up Tip
In this Coaching Minute video, Heather Rader shares advice for dealing with teachers who need support when you are in the midst of other responsibilities. A transcript is available below...
Building Community Protocols
When we plan professional development sessions, inservice courses, and literacy team meetings, we are always on the lookout for new ways to build community within the group so that everyone...
The Road to Rainbow Magic: Hannah’s Story
A comfortable calm came over the room. It was reading time and students were settling in together and alone. Some were enjoying the solitude of a beanbag chair while others...
Keeping It Real for Students: Never Underestimate the Power of Reflection
Katie is a veteran teacher who willingly shares she is learning all the time. Her stance has evolved over time from the traditional preparation she received in her pre-service program...
Taking Four Corners of Text Personally
Nothing personal . . . I dislike the phrase nothing personal and try not to use it myself. For some communicators it’s the tag that gets added onto something unsolicited...
