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Lead Literacy Articles & Videos (formerly leadliteracy.com)

Our lounge is your home for exploring hundreds of articles and videos for literacy coaches and school leaders. Our contributors share their best advice for working one-on-one with teachers in coaching cycles, hosting professional development sessions, and designing demonstration lessons and study groups.

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Summer Work: Absorb the World

How will we prepare to lead strong literacy initiatives next year? Nawal Qarooni Casiano makes a case for recharging and disconnecting to allow ourselves to be naturally thoughtful, literate individuals.

Have a Little Fun and Encourage Colleagues

Inga Omondi offers wise (and fun) advice on how to uplift and encourage colleagues.

Offer a Mirror: How Coaches Empower Reflection

David Pittman unfolds a coaching process to provide teachers with a mirror so they can reflect deeply and discover their next instructional moves.

How Well Do You Know Your Team? Checking In On Our Relationships with Teachers

Heather Fisher guides literacy leaders through a reflective exercise to reveal relationship strengths and gaps that will offer direction in how to strengthen key connections.

Fine-Tuning Our Coaching with an Equalizer Model

Gwen Blumberg is inspired by a stereo equalizer in adjusting instructional practices to find the just-right mix as she works alongside teachers and students.

Welcome Slides Set Professional Learning in Motion

David Pittman uses welcome slides to set a purpose and orient participants to the professional learning session.

Mantras Matter

Brian Sepe guides us in the importance of creating and living by mantras.

Wrapping Up the School Year: Start, Stop, Keep

Nawal Qarooni Casiano leads educators through a reflection on equity and access by considering what we want to start, stop and keep in our practices.

The Daily GIF

Jen Schwanke encourages leaders to consider how to give a daily boost of morale.

Coaching Through the Student Door

Gwen Blumberg outlines the way sharing an asynchronous minilesson with teachers allowed her to share instructional insights in a relevant and useful way.

Coaching and Demonstration Lessons

Literacy coaches Cathy Mere and Kelly Hoenie talk about the value and challenges of demonstration lessons.

Coaching Minute: Principals and the Change Process

Principal Lee Snider talks about the change process with teachers.

COVID: What I’ll Keep

Jen Schwanke reflects on the things she’ll keep after a year of pandemic teaching.

Soft Starts to Meetings That Build Empathy

Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share soft starts to professional learning meetings designed to build empathy by providing opportunities for teachers to do the work of readers and writers, as well as connect with one another.

Trust Your Tools. Trust Your Teachers

Matt Renwick cracks open his process for trusting teachers and encouraging growth through coaching conversations.

Hiring Teachers for Today and Tomorrow

Matt Renwick explains how his leadership team’s thinking has changed when it comes to hiring teachers, with a much stronger emphasis on figuring out how candidates might handle change in the future.

The Power of a Confession: What Readers Really Do

When Sara Kajder commits a readerly sin during a curriculum meeting, it opens the floodgate to confessions of other readerly sins among members of the English department, as well as refocuses their attention on practices that invite students to build intentional reading lives.

Teacher to Literacy Coach Transition

Literacy coaches Cathy Mere and Kelly Hoenie talk about the transition from being a teacher to becoming a coach.

Virtual Icebreakers: Maintaining Human Connection (Part 2)

In this second installment of “Virtual Icebreakers,” Heather Fisher shares more creative ideas for opening meetings in order to maintain strong staff relationships while meeting virtually.

Virtual Icebreakers: Part 1

In this first installment of “Virtual Icebreakers,” Heather Fisher shares creative ideas for opening meetings in order to maintain strong staff relationships while meeting virtually.

Coaching for All

Jen Schwanke believes in the importance of leaders seeking a coach in order to remain sharp as a professional. She offers three identifiers to know it’s time to find a coach.

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