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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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How to Start a Writing Group

Do you have a goal of starting a writing group in your school or district? Ruth Ayres provides a step-by-step guide.

Slow Down: The Power of Two-Word Goals

Jennifer Schwanke is a minimalist when it comes to setting goals, and her advice may help you focus your expectations in the new year too.

Coaching Minute: Who I Know You to Be

Heather Rader shares a great phrase to use when building relationships with colleagues in this quick video tip.

Making Time for Classroom Visits

Jason DiCarlo explains why classroom visits are his top priority as a principal, and shares his schedule and prompts he uses while visiting to learn from students and teachers.

The Quiet Power of Language and Learning with Art

Andie Cunningham finds watercolors are the perfect tool for learning in a study group on a dreary winter day.

Coaching Minute: Little Things

In this brief video tip, Ruth Ayres reminds us it's the little things that matter most when it comes to coaching.

No Time for Collaboration

How can teachers and specialists collaborate when they are already stretched so thin for time? Shari Frost presents a case study from fifth grade.

Coaching Minute: Use Soft Words and Hard Arguments

Heather Rader explains the importance of using gentle words when giving honest but difficult feedback in this quick video tip.

Reluctant Teachers and Nonfiction

How do you work with teachers who refuse to change the quantity or quality of nonfiction reading and writing in their classrooms? Jennifer Schwanke has some suggestions.
 

Building Foundations

Ruth Ayres shares a professional development activity which helps teachers think deeply about their beliefs and how they are expressed in practice.

Coaching Minute: Nametags and So Much More

Heather Rader has a terrific suggestion for name placecards at large professional development sessions that can do double and triple duty for facilitators.

Strength in Assessment: A Professional Development Protocol

How can you lead a discussion about assessment without getting bogged down in minutia? Andie Cunningham shares a protocol that sparks participation with the drawback of one or two people (or assessment tools) dominating the conversation.

Coaching Minute: Flexible Plans

The key to successful coaching in classrooms? Ruth Ayres believes it is flexibility and keeping some space in your schedule for the unexpected, as she explains in this Coaching Minute video.

Writing Conferences: The Power of Listening

Ruth Shagoury asks teachers from K-12 to bring back what they learn from one-on-one conferences with students to a study group and finds the students have become the teachers.

Letting Children Lead While Conferring

Heather Sisson works in a third-grade classroom as a coach and practices the delicate art of conferring with young writers.

Coaching Minute: We Are Guests

What does it mean to be a guest in a classroom? Ruth Ayres considers the complex role coaches have as visitors to classrooms.

The View from a Principal’s Window

Jennifer Schwanke writes about professional insecurities, and connects her experiences to building confidence in young readers and writers.

From Bootcamp to School: Building Enthusiasm for New Initiatives

Jason DiCarlo finds there are parallels between the initial unenthusiastic response of participants at his gym to a new challenge and the process of initiating change in schools.

Picture It: Just in Time Writing Resources

Heather Sisson mixes high-tech computer alerts with low-tech book baskets to help teachers gather the mentor texts they need to prepare for assessments in this “Picture It” feature.

Incorporating Kids into Professional Development for Adults

“My students aren’t like those in the video!” Heather Rader and her colleagues Linda Karamatic and Amanda Adrian tackle their colleagues concerns by using children as live models for professional development.

Going Public with Study Groups

A cancelled meeting is the mother of invention for Jennifer Allen, leading to a new way for teachers to share and display their learning from study groups.

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