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What I Know for Sure: Reflection and Core Beliefs
Last summer, I read this tiny book by Oprah Winfrey called What I Know for Sure. As she writes in the first chapter, she reflects on all the lessons she...
An Open Apology
To: Parents of Students I Taught From: A Teacher Who Now Knows Better Hello, Parents— Your child was just twelve years old when he or she was in my class....
Advocating for English Language Learners
I recently worked with a team of teachers on a committee to interview candidates for an open position working with English language learners. We all gathered around a large conference...
Developing Coaching Skills Together
We have a small group of literacy coaches in my district. There are four of us, and we have become a rather tight-knit group. We meet together monthly to discuss...
Rethinking End-of-Year Assessments
If an assessment is not lifting the quality of our instruction or helping us understand the needs of readers, we believe we need to question why we are giving it....
Empowering the Reading Team
One of our district goals this year is to give our paraprofessionals more in-depth training in some of the work we are asking them to do with our learners who...
Hiring for Literacy: The Big Picture
Spring is an exciting time. The playgrounds are once again full of gleeful shouts from children, the promise of summer is in the air, and we, as educators, are seeing...
Wild Reading: A Coach’s Perspective
I just finished reading Donalyn Miller's book Reading in the Wild. I know her path to creating wild readers is an important one. She believes that reading should be a regular part...
Hosting a Family Writing Night
Our district holds a Literacy Night each school year. In the past, we have hosted family read-ins, author visits, and make-and-take nights. However, with the implementation of the Common Core...
Apps in Perspective
I sighed after opening an email requesting “tablet support” from a group of teachers. I dropped my head into my hands and groaned. I stared at the screen. Then I...
I Have Time
One of the first pieces of advice I was given as a new coach was this: Always be busy. This advice was followed with a list of suggestions of how...
Resourceful and Cheap: Professional Development That Sparks Learning and Change
Recently, the balance between teaching and professional development has been way out of whack. The Visionary has erred on the side of overdeveloping us, and we are in meetings every...
Libraries for All: Considering Struggling Readers
Quietly I enter the classroom as reading workshop begins, glancing around the room to locate the readers with whom I plan to confer today. As a primary reading intervention teacher,...
Student-Centered Coaching: Collaborating with Teachers
A teacher who earlier shared that her team has a focus on nonfiction writing is at the copier. I greet her and say, “I was thinking about your team as...
Accountable Talk: Beginning Steps
As another set of state test scores reaches our doorway, our grade 3-6 teachers are frustrated at the amount of work they have done with students over the past four...
Secrets of Coaching Revisited
Listen First Teach by Example Be Patient I first read these words of the late Juli Kendell back in 2007 in an article she wrote on the secrets of school-based...
Coaching the Nuts and Bolts of Book Bags
We are seeing reading workshop thriving in classrooms where we coach teachers. It is so exciting to hear students talking about the books they like, the authors they have discovered,...
Writer-ish
Thinking ishly allowed his ideas to flow freely. Peter Reynolds in Ish In my new position as a literacy coach, I no longer have a classroom of students. Although...
Failure to Thrive: Rethinking Assessment Binders
"Let's put together a binder for teachers that holds all the important assessment things they need. Let's make them color coded by grade level. And let's give them to every...
Literacy Day
My suburban Ohio city is lucky enough to have excellent snow-removal crews, so my district leaders are typically able to avoid canceling school for inclement weather. Not so this year....
Just Tell Me! Evaluation and the Coach’s Dilemma
Coaches are not evaluators. We are a teacher's side-by-side partner; a confidential listener, encouraging teachers to take risks, helping them to hone their skills to become the best teacher for...
