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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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Coaching for Confidence

No matter their level of skill or experience, teachers can find their confidence shaken. Melanie Quinn analyzes some of the reasons for teacher insecurity, and how literacy coaches can help.

Sustaining Trust While Maintaining High Expectations

Matt Renwick tackles a tricky issue for literacy leaders. How do you build a relationship of trust when there are clearly issues with the quality of a teacher's instruction?

Demonstration Lesson: First-Grade Talk Prompts

Heather Fisher presents a lesson with a first-grade teacher as part of a cycle focused on improving classroom talk. This is the second video in a two-part series.

Coaching Minute: Case Studies with Reading Specialists

Heather Fisher and Kathy Provost talk about how case studies have changed their work with literacy specialists over the past year in this brief video.

Collecting Data on Case Study Students

Launching case studies can be overwhelming for teachers and specialists. Kathy Provost shares a form she uses with reading specialists to help focus observations and collect a manageable amount of data to analyze for each case study student.

Who Keeps You Up at Night?

Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan ask this question to launch a discussion of one challenging learner and open teachers to the possibilities of case studies.

Learning Through Listening

Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan provide some simple listening and questioning strategies to help coaches focus on the specific needs of each teacher.

No More Whack-a-Mole Coaching

Cathy Mere shares strategies for avoiding distractions and staying focused while coaching.

Maintaining Teacher Ownership in Coaching Conversations

Cathy Mere ponders the unspoken messages we can send other coaches and teachers, and how to make our work more collaborative through the language we use.

Demonstration Lesson Planning: First-Grade Talk Prompts

Heather Fisher plans a lesson with a first-grade teacher as part of a cycle focused on improving classroom talk. This is the first video in a two-part series.

Common Planning Meeting: Third-Grade Notebooks

In this excerpt from a common planning meeting, Kathy Provost works with third-grade teachers who are focused on improving their use of student notebooks across the curriculum.

From Somewhere to Somewhere

Brian Sepe struggles in a coaching cycle with an experienced teacher and realizes he has imposed his agenda on the work. His reflection leads to some changes in the ways he collaborates with colleagues.

Meeting with Principals

Melanie Meehan finds that the five different principals she works with have different needs and work styles, but using a common agenda template in meetings ensures good communication for everyone.

Coaching Minute: Considering Language

Heather Fisher and Kathy Provost share subtle changes in the language they are using with teachers to foster more collaboration.

Making the Most of Monthly Common Planning Times

Kathy Provost finds that narrowing the focus for grade-level monthly meetings at the start of the school year by asking teachers to decide on a topic of inquiry leads to more thoughtful work all year long.

A Timesaver for Coaching Cycles

Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan leverage technology to improve their communication with teachers during coaching cycles.

Data Mining Before a Coaching Cycle

Melanie Meehan shares the importance of considering data with teachers at the start of a coaching cycle.

Teachers Who Write

Ruth Ayres shares the power of a professional development session that reawakened her love of writing and then transformed her teaching.

Making Fiction Writing Come to Life

Heather Fisher experiences a breakthrough with first-grade teachers when they create fictional characters in a professional development session and then try the same activity with their students.

A Chartbook Tour

Melanie Meehan gives a “tour” of her chartbook, explaining how she organizes the sketches to use in her classroom coaching.

Coaching Minute: Literacy Master Document

Kathy Provost and Heather Fisher explain how the Literacy Master Document has simplified and improved their coaching.

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