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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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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.

High Schools, Scale, and Reluctance: A Podcast with Diane Sweeney

In this 18-minute podcast, Diane Sweeney talks about the challenges of coaching at the secondary level, and shares advice for working with reluctant teachers.

Collecting PLC Data with Google Forms

Bill Bass uses Google Forms as a tool for assessing the learning in professional learning communities and refining his role in supporting teachers. Included is a template for you to create your own Google Form.

Quick Check-ins: Touching Base Before Coaching Sessions

Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan describe the art of the three- to five-minute check-in before collaborating with teachers in classrooms.

Time In/Time Out Conference: Andrew

In this "time in/time out" conference, Ruth Ayres and Cathy Laker meet with second grader Andrew, who is working on a "versus" story in writing workshop.

Virtually Coaching a Lesson

Coaching cycles look different depending on teachers' needs. Via email and phone, Heather Rader has professional conversations with a teacher as he plans and designs a lesson for observation.

Coaching Minute: Venting and Rant Ruts

Heather Rader explains in this one-minute video the difference between healthy venting and "rant ruts," with advice for how to help colleagues move beyond unhealthy talk patterns.

The Power of the Spoken Word

Heather Sisson helps a fourth-grade teacher apply speaking and listening standards from the Common Core in his classroom, and collect data to analyze students' oral skills at the same time.

High Expectations? Looking for Evidence

Melanie Quinn reflects on the profound implications of the high or low expectations teachers have for students, and the coach's role in changing them.

Coaching Minute: Working with Principals

Ruth Ayres has advice for how literacy coaches can work effectively with principals in this one-minute video.

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