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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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Be Someone Who Writes

Melanie Meehan shares some practical suggestions for helping teachers (and literacy coaches) build a writing habit and get over their feelings of inadequacy as writers.

Reading Invasion

"Imagine roughly 400 people—staff and students—walking out into the green space on your school campus. Now imagine every one of them with a book in hand. Next, they all take up a space that feels comfortable. Then, they read." Brian Sepe explains how a "reading invasion" is a simple, fun, and powerful way to promote a reading community.

It’s the Little Things: Small Actions for Building a Healthy Literacy Culture

Matt Renwick explains how everything from symbols to basic cleanliness in schools affects the climate for literacy.

What We Lost

Brenda Power shares a simple activity to use in a teachers' writing workshop or professional development setting to get everyone writing and talking.

Making Cuts in Writing: Demonstration Conference

Is there anything more difficult than getting a student to trim their writing draft? Tammy Mulligan confers with fifth grader Noah and uses her own writing as a mentor text to show how she faced a similar challenge. The demonstration conference includes a prebrief and a debrief with Noah’s teacher.

Sketchnoting in Professional Development

Stephanie Affinito energizes a professional development session with sketchnoting, and teachers soon take the practice back to their classrooms.

The Evolution of a Coaching Tool Kit

Melanie Meehan moves from a cart to a bag to a small baggie . . . and then back to a cart again. She explains how the tools she brings to classrooms and the thinking behind them have changed over time.

Bonding with a Collective Biography

Brenda Power is inspired by Amy Krouse Rosenthal to try a professional development icebreaker that brings any group together by talking through common experiences and beliefs.

Grade-Level Team Meeting: Conversations in First Grade

In this video of a first-grade team meeting with a literacy coach, Heather Fisher uses online resources and anchor charts to build cohesive instruction in talk strategies across the grade.

What’s Talkworthy? Demonstration Small Group

In this demonstration lesson with a sixth-grade group, Tammy Mulligan brings a chart of ideas from students in another school to jump-start the discussion of what’s “talkworthy” in book clubs. The lesson includes a prebrief and debrief with the classroom teacher.

DIY Notebooks for Literacy Coaches

Stephanie Affinito turns her on-the-spot demo notes and scrawled sticky notes into a more carefully constructed coaching notebook.

Three Ways to Keep Coaching Student Centered

Melanie Meehan shares practical tips for keeping the focus on students in coaching sessions.

Coaching Minute: Student Observation Form

In this brief video, Kathy Provost and Heather Fisher talk about the value of trying out a student observation form first within the coaching team before using it in classroom observations with teachers.

Kid-Watching as a Coaching Move

Dana Murphy explains why kid-watching is often the most effective strategy for her time in classrooms, and how she uses her notes with teachers.

Allocating Services

Jennifer Schwanke shares principles for leading those awkward meetings when staff need to decide between too many students who need a finite amount of services.

Meeting Mind-Set

Christy Rush-Levine helps a colleague develop strategies for getting the most out of an upcoming meeting she dreads.

Can Anyone Be an Instructional Coach?

When it comes time to hire a new literacy coach, Matt Renwick finds himself focusing on three simple and essential qualities every coach must possess.

Coaching as Inquiry

Cathy Mere builds a coaching community through focusing on inquiry all year long. She lists some of her favorite resources for introducing an inquiry stance.

Using Concern Forms for Feedback

Matt Renwick explains why it’s useful to give staff a platform to share any concerns anonymously—even those that might seem trivial at first glance.

Coaching Feedback and Reflection

Stella Villalba shares some simple strategies to foster more reflection and feedback with the teachers she coaches.

Graphics and Coaching Opportunities

Dana Murphy uses visually appealing graphics to entice teachers to enlist in coaching and professional development sessions.

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