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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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Discussion Before Demonstration Lesson

In this video excerpt from a brief meeting before a demonstration lesson, you'll see the first-grade teacher Erin, who will be leading the lesson, share her concerns. The principal, Jason DiCarlo, talks about how the goals of the lesson and expectations for success vary, depending upon the aims of the grade-level team.

Making PLCs Work: Getting Teacher Input

Dana Murphy shares a simple activity to get teachers invested in professional learning communities.

Meeting Debrief: Coaching Literacy Coaches

Heather Sisson and Amanda Adrian debrief after leading a professional development session for literacy coaches on the Pause Paraphrase Probe strategy.

Essential Resources for Building Professional Learning Communities

Matt Renwick shares his favorite online and print resources for PLCs, including templates and surveys for planning before groups are launched.

Managing the Email Load

Jennifer Schwanke explains how she categorizes her emails and streamlines the time she spends reading them.

Always “On”: Reconsidering Connectivity

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.

Using Padlet to Support a Boys’ Book Group

In this fifth-grade demonstration lesson, Tammy Mulligan shows a group of boys how their book group can use Padlet to share ideas. The lesson includes a prebrief and debrief with the teacher.

Questions for Reflection and Goal Setting with Teachers

Matt Renwick shares some of his favorite questions and strategies for promoting reflection and goal setting with teachers.

Coaching Connections

Jennifer Vincent takes on a new role in a new school district. She develops trust with a plan for working with colleagues to set goals and reflect.

Visualizing to Sustain Reading: Second-Grade Small Group

Clare Landrigan leads a small-group demonstration lesson with second graders who are having trouble sustaining their reading. The strategy she teaches is visualizing as a way to help the children hold key details from the story. The lesson includes prebrief and debrief sessions with the teacher.

Together: Supporting Readers Toward Independence

Cathy Mere works with first-grade teacher Deb Frazier to ensure that struggling readers receiving extra support still have plenty of time for independent reading in literacy workshops.

Refining Reflective Practice and Notetaking

Gretchen Taylor shares three tweaks she has made to her record-keeping system to ensure she keeps her coaching notes organized and useful for reflection.

Nurturing a Growth Mindset in Young Readers

Heather Fisher shares some of the practical strategies she has developed to assist teachers with the issues of stamina and motivation in primary reading workshops.

Meeting Snapshot: “Look Fors” After Demonstration Lesson

Jason DiCarlo leads a group of first-grade teachers sharing their "look-for" notes after a demonstration lesson in a first-grade classroom. The teachers were observing a lesson on differences between fiction and nonfiction, and used both the look-fors and their observations of designated students to focus their notes.

Coaching Tool: Evernote

Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan describe how they use Evernote to enhance coaching collaboration and organize materials and assessments from professional development sessions.

Parents in a Foreign Land

Jennifer Schwanke shares the poignant tale of connecting with the parents of English language learners.

Engaging Not Blaming: Increasing Parent Involvement

Melanie Quinn and her colleagues try some fresh approaches to tackling the dilemma of low participation in curriculum events for parents.

Kindergarten Writing: Helping Advanced Learners

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.

New-to-Grade-Level Teacher Tool Kit

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.

Advice for New Literacy Coaches: An Interview with Susan Avis

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.

Master Class: Mentoring New Coaches

Memories are triggered as Jennifer Allen mentors a first-year literacy coach through the anxieties and failures of the first weeks in the role.

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