Lead Lit Article Type: Try It
Results
Literacy Specialists and Case Studies
There are always a few students who puzzle even the most seasoned reading specialists. Even though these specialists carry a large bag of tricks, they don’t always know exactly what...
Six Ways to Empower Teachers to Write
If we want to teach students to write, then we must understand how writers work. The best way to understand how writers work is to write! When teachers write, their...
Creating a Digital Footprint
Have you ever Googled yourself? You know, just to see what would come up? If you haven’t, I encourage you to do just that. Put your name in Google, put...
After the Demonstration: Modeling Healthy, Sustainable Reflection
The older my children get, the more intentional I am about making the most of the smallest snippets of time we have together. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the 10...
Making Classroom Visits a Habit
In a previous article for Lead Literacy, I outlined my plan for becoming more organized and intentional as a school principal. I will check email only at certain times of...
Making Coaching Meaningful: Establishing Goals and Roles
When I first became a coach, I made some big stumbles. Full disclosure: I still do. They’re just new ones. More than once, these stumbles were caused by a failure...
Using Wait Time in Professional Development
We have gathered for our weekly staff meeting in the media center. The topic is student engagement, and I have just asked a rather thought-provoking question: How can you tell...
Every Classroom, Every Day
In an article for Educational Leadership titled “Every Child, Every Day,” Richard Allington and Rachael Gabriel offer six essentials every student should experience in his or her classroom on a...
Being Present
“Look at me. Hey. Hey! Mom! Look. At. Me!” I glanced up from my phone and met my daughter’s narrowed, brown-eyed stare. Her face barely peeked over the counter, but...
Getting Out of the Tater Tot Office: The Importance of Visibility
In my role as a literacy coach, I’ve shared a lot of spaces with a lot of people and a lot of “stuff”: spaces with walls of computer equipment, stuffed...
Making PLCs Work: Shifting the Tone
Our weekly professional learning community (PLC) meetings were sailing along. Each week they started with pleasantries and chitchat. Usually, someone had curriculum questions that needed to be answered. I tried...
The Words We Use
Our small team of teachers gathered around the table. The school hallways had not yet filled with the morning sounds of students entering the building, and our mugs were still...
Making PLCs Work: Getting Teacher Input
The teaching staff in my district is given an extraordinary gift each week. Every classroom teacher is given 50 quiet, uninterrupted minutes to collaborate with his or her grade-level team...
Managing the Email Load
In my role as a principal, I feel like a slave to email pretty much all of the time. I get hundreds of emails a day, and it feels like...
Questions for Reflection and Goal Setting with Teachers
We start the school year, and all of a sudden it’s spring. Where did the time go? Even when a fast pace is the result of students experiencing deep learning,...
Coaching Tool: Evernote
Each time we meet with a group of teachers, leave a classroom after a coaching session, or finish a workshop, we think, I need to remember ______. Inevitably, we think...
Nurturing a Growth Mindset in Young Readers
The growth mindset, a term brought to life by psychologist Carol Dweck, is becoming an ever-present expression in our schools. In her book Mindset, she refers to the growth mindset...
Engaging Not Blaming: Increasing Parent Involvement
“Why don’t we have a good turnout at curriculum night? Don’t our parents care about their child’s education?" It’s human nature, unfortunately, to resist holding up the mirror when our...
A Writing Marathon for Teachers
Five of us meet on a beautiful Pacific Northwest Saturday morning at a park that overlooks the falls. After we connect about our summers, I begin with an excerpt from...
Loaf and Invite Your Soul
I loaf and invite my soul, I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. These lines from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself silenced the high...
Three Little Tweaks for More Effective Communication
Sometimes it feels like the amount of information we receive in a single week could fill the Grand Canyon. We live in the information age, and it comes flying at...
