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Coaching Support Structures

Some literacy leaders receive extensive training for working with adult learners, but most of us do not. As you move between the stances of coach, collaborator and consultant, you’ll need support structures in place for defining your role, communicating with administrators, advocating for your position with a school board and more. Here you’ll find reflections and how-tos that respond to the question, “Who coaches the coach?”

Latest Content
Have Coach, Will Travel

Stephanie Affinito is a traveling coach, with no office to call her own. She shares tips and tools for organizing and streamlining materials when you are constantly on the go between classrooms and schools.

Coaching Minute: New Coaches and Principals

Principal Lee Snider talks about the importance of being intentional in integrating new coaches into the school community.

Coaching Minute: Good Communication Between Coaches and Principals

Principal Lee Snider talks with literacy coach Lora Bieghler about developing a rapport when a coach is new to the building.

Coaching Minute: Dealing with Parent Concerns

Principal Lee Snider talks about how he deals with parent concerns.

The Feedback Trap

Cathy Mere considers the differences between feedback and reflection, and why it’s important to have a balance when coaching teachers.

Coaching Minute: Building Rapport with Teachers

Principal Lee Snider talks about how he built rapport with teachers when he was new to the role of principal in the building.

A Heart for Coaching

“Do you miss the classroom?” Cathy Mere has answered this question often. It makes her think about the differences between coaching and teaching, and how it takes time to develop a coaching heart.

Coaching Minute: Collaborating with Principals

Literacy coach Jen Court explains how she collaborates with principals.

Using Supplies to Inspire

Heather Fisher shares her favorite tools to share as gifts for a new literacy coach.

A Little Bit of Clarity

Matt Renwick goes out to buy a new pair of glasses, and gets a stern lecture on taking care of them. The experience makes him ponder how we get clarity for best practices in literacy instruction.

Creating Coaching Visions

Vision boards are a marvelous way to help teachers and coaches reflect in positive ways on their professional goals and passions. Stephanie Affinito explains how she helps colleagues create them.

Brain Dumps for Clarity in Coaching

Too much email, too much paper, just too much. David Pittman finds “brain dumps” are a useful tool for helping teachers sift through and clarify what’s important to work on with a literacy coach.

Unleveling Classroom Libraries

Moving a classroom library from levels to themes and authors is challenging and rewarding. Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share how they take teachers step by step through the process of reorganizing their classroom libraries.

Best Intentions with No Assumptions

Matt Renwick considers how assumptions about teachers and students can stymie leaders and learning in schools.

Celebrations Across the Year

Cathy Mere discovers her routine for celebrations at the start of staff meetings is leaving some colleagues out. She revises her thinking and practice for celebrations among literacy coaches all year long.

Encouraging Teachers to Write

One of the biggest challenges literacy coaches face is getting teachers to write. It’s worth the effort, because nothing else is as effective in helping teachers understand and implement successful writing workshops. Ruth Ayres shares three practical strategies for helping teachers put pen to page.

Finding Time for Classroom Walk-Throughs

Matt Renwick is surprised when teachers evaluate his school visibility as weak. He decides to make his classroom visits more purposeful, and shares the strategies he implements.

The 15-Minute Meeting

Ruth Ayres uses key questions to keep her lesson debrief meetings only 15 minutes long, and finds that the limits provoke rich conversations and reflection in a short amount of time.

Meeting with Building Leaders

Melanie Meehan shares her agenda items and strategies for productive regular meetings between literacy coaches and principals.

A Literacy Foundation

A literacy community is only as strong as its foundation. Matt Renwick uses discussions around mission statements and shared texts to build a collective vision for literacy instruction in one school.

Classroom Visit Protocols

Jennifer Schwanke shares tips for ensuring your classroom visits aren’t unexpected or unwelcome.

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