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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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Better Team Meetings

Are your team meetings welcoming? Jennifer Schwanke describes how one team leader created a happy, thriving, and safe space for team gatherings.

First-Grade Team: Next Steps

Heather Fisher leads a first-grade teaching team as they plan action steps to take before their next monthly meeting.

Planning for Monthly Literacy Team Meetings

Kathy Provost explains how she gathers resources for team meetings, anticipating the needs that might come up in group discussions and how often to vary the group activities.

Fourth-Grade Advanced Readers: Planning

Kathy Provost helps a fourth-grade teacher plan how to support advanced readers in a demonstration small group. This is the first video in a three-part series.

Fourth-Grade Advanced Readers: Demonstration Lesson

Kathy Provost helps a fourth-grade teacher support advanced readers in a demonstration small group. This is the second video in a three-part series.

Fourth-Grade Advanced Readers: Debrief

Kathy Provost debriefs with a fourth-grade teacher after supporting advanced readers in a demonstration small group. This is the final video in a three-part series.

Speech/Language Pathology and Literacy: Making Connections

Jennifer Schwanke explains why she routinely consults with a speech and language specialist for insights into reading and writing difficulties a student may be experiencing.

Coach and Principal Relationships

Ruth Ayres has suggestions for stronger and more productive relationships between literacy coaches and principals.

Preparing Teachers for Reading Over Breaks

Stephanie Affinito shares strategies for helping teachers build plans and excitement for reading over holiday and summer breaks.

Evaluation Season

Jennifer Schwanke shares the challenges of having honest conversations with teachers during evaluative sessions, acknowledging that her performance is being judged as well.

Building from Strengths

This professional development activity from Brenda Power is a positive take on the many skills teachers have to tackle any problem.

More Productive Workshops

By early in the new year, literacy workshops should be humming with productivity. If you're in one that isn't, Melanie Meehan has suggestions for working with the teacher to find and solve problems together.

Building Specialist Capacity

Melanie Meehan explains how she creates videos to enhance the skills of paraprofessionals and volunteers working in classrooms.

Breathe

Jen Schwanke resists giving time over to a teacher for an unplanned activity before a meeting she knows will be challenging. Afterward, she realizes the value in pausing to remind everyone what matters most in our work.

Build More Lingering into Coaching

Stephanie Affinito finds that frustration can morph into appreciation when coaches linger long enough to let teachers know how much their work is valued. She provides many practical suggestions for how to slow down during hectic coaching days.

Making Meetings Purposeful

From identifying intent to setting personal norms, Jen Schwanke shares her key principles for leading meetings that participants won't hate.

First-Grade Team: Exploring Student Engagement

Heather Fisher leads a first-grade team monthly meeting where everyone shares strategies they are trying for fostering more student engagement.

Being Selfish About Meeting Norms

Jennifer Allen questions the purpose of meeting norms, and begins from a new place in establishing them for a study group.

The Children Are Communicating. Are We Listening?

Melanie Quinn realizes our classrooms are filled with mini-coaches. The students in front of us are clearly communicating their needs; we just need to do a better job of paying attention.

Coaching Minute: Case Study Observation Form

Literacy coaches Heather Fisher and Kathy Provost talk about how their work with reading specialists has evolved by having the specialists focus on case studies of individual students, rather than spending much of their time focused solely on big data. They share a form they use to help reading specialists hone their observation skills.

Who Are “They”? Word Choice and Student Learning

Gretchen Taylor finds that these kids and everyone are key words to focus on in coaching, because they can signify sweeping assumptions in lieu of a close look at individual behaviors.

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