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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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Bounce-Back Spirit

Ruth Ayres shares the "bounce-back spirit" all educators need through the inspiring story and video of Heather Dorniden.

The Importance of Encouragement

Melanie Meehan and a coaching colleague transfer lessons from their children participating on sports teams to their coaching sessions.

The Students Behind the Numbers

Matt Renwick shares the challenges and benefits of using multiple measures to inform instruction with an example of the impact of a read aloud in a fifth-grade classroom.

The Evolution of Data Meetings

Kathy Provost writes about how her district moved from a physical to a virtual data wall, and the implications for talk about assessment and student needs.

Coaching Minute: Student Work Form

Melanie Meehan talks about the importance of developing assessment forms for coaching cycles that focus on student work and integrating analysis of the work into plans for instruction.

Coaching Collaboration: Visual Note Taking in First Grade

Heather Fisher and a first-grade teacher collaborate after an embarrassing classroom observation reveals that students need to develop note-taking skills.

From Worksheets to Workshops

A teacher asks first-year literacy coach Gretchen Taylor to observe and help with a disengaged student. Gretchen discovers in her observation that the issue may be that the literacy curriculum needs an update.

In the Trenches: Reflection, Not Perfection

Gretchen Taylor finds it’s important to suppress her urge to manage students when coaching—and to be honest with teachers about those urges.

Helping with Management Challenges in First Grade

Melanie Meehan is coaching a first-grade teacher struggling with management. She shares her top four strategies for focusing students during minilessons.

First-Grade Retelling Demonstration Lesson

Clare Landrigan leads this first-grade demonstration small group on retelling strategies. The demonstration includes prebrief and debrief meetings with the teacher.

Meeting Snapshot: Defining the Essential Question

Jason DiCarlo leads a team of first-grade teachers and specialists as they work to define an essential question before a demonstration lesson to focus discussions and expectations.

Coaching Tool: Voice-Overs

Brian Sepe uses "voice-overs" (reflecting aloud during demonstration lessons) to help display his thinking to teachers who are observing the instruction.

Voice Notes

Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan use voice notes as a way to be more reflective and systematic in organizing materials after professional development sessions.

Problems and Solutions: Small-Group Demonstration Lesson

In this demonstration small group, Clare Landrigan works with a second-grade teacher to reflect on the needs of two students and, after the lesson, debriefs with her about the learning.

Better Meetings Through Reflection

Jennifer Allen ponders the importance of including a reflection component in meetings, and shares a reflection protocol she finds is effective.

Ending Coaching Cycles with Reflection

Melanie Meehan shares tools and tips for integrating more reflection into coaching cycles.

Meeting Snapshot: Selecting a Standard for Lesson Study

In this short video excerpt, Jason DiCarlo works with a first-grade team to select a standard before designing a demonstration lesson. The group explores connections between reading and writing, and has an honest discussion of where children are in terms of understanding differences in fiction and nonfiction.

The Power of Sketchbooks for Coaches

Melanie Swider finds sketchbooks are a nifty tool for creating sample anchor charts as well as conferring with students and teachers.

Taking a Literacy Temperature

The start of a new year is nearly the midpoint of the academic year, and it may be the perfect time to take the "literacy temperature" of your school. Jennifer Schwanke explains how to assess the health learning climate beyond test scores.

What’s in Your Bag?

Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan open their coaching bag and share every item on their “must-have” list for traveling from classroom to classroom.

It’s All About Perception

Literacy coach Melanie Quinn works with teachers to help them move beyond deficit-based thinking in analyzing assessments.

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