Melanie Meehan meets with kindergarten teacher Katie to talk through the needs of two children who are just beginning to learn how to transfer their stories from home to the page.
Jennifer Allen shares her annual list of study group topics, along with reflections about the role of literacy leaders in fostering creativity and innovation in classrooms.
Gretchen Taylor writes about the promise and peril of new tech tools that allow teachers, students, and coaches to always be connected. She shares some questions to help teachers make wise choices about how they will use these tools in classrooms.
Melanie Meehan meets with kindergarten teacher Hayley to examine student work and talk about how to help young learners who are still in transition from home to school environments.
This is the time of year when many teachers are getting new grade assignments for the coming year. Melanie Meehan shares a tool kit she's designed to help each teacher make the shift.
Susan Avis chats with Brenda Power about the delicate work of honoring the strengths of teachers while still pushing them beyond their comfort zones to improve skills.
Kim Campbell finds a snippet of Walt Whitman's poetry is just what students and teachers need to pause and to refresh their intellects and energy levels.
Terry Thompson leads a quilters' workshop for teachers on a lark over the summer, and everyone makes some powerful connections to reading and writing instruction.
Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan explain how they organize on-the-go resources for presentations in this second installment in the coaching tools series.
Jason DiCarlo explains the importance of previewing resources and not just giving them to teachers, as well as linking the text directly to current work. In this video example, Jason distributes copies of Debbie Miller's Reading with Meaning during a first-grade lesson study of fiction and nonfiction text features.
Scott Jones shares his experience of being in conflict with a coach. After an uncomfortable 24 hours, he ends up with some insights about the value of the teacher-coach relationship.