Lead Lit Topic: Coaching Support Structures
Some literacy leaders receive extensive training for working with adult learners, but most of us do not. As you move between the stances of coach, collaborator and consultant, you’ll need support structures in place for defining your role, communicating with administrators, advocating for your position with a school board and more. Here you’ll find reflections and how-tos that respond to the question, “Who coaches the coach?”
Results
Coaching Minute: Taking Time to Plan
David Pittman encourages the importance of instructional coaches taking the time to plan.
Five Books to Launch Discussion About the Coaching Role
The role of an instructional coach is complex, varied, and responsive to the teachers and students within a single building. Each position can look drastically different from the next, and...
Transcripts as a Coaching Tool
The Background Mindy is a first-year, third-grade teacher. I am her literacy instructional coach. This article is the story of a time when Mindy experienced a common problem of practice...
Research and Learn
Matt reached out to me regarding his third-grade writers as they were about to launch into their informational writing unit. After we administered an on-demand assessment and reviewed the data,...
Coaching Connections: Drop-In Visits
At the start of my first year as a literacy coach, I was more than a little overwhelmed by my new role. I needed to quickly build relationships with teachers,...
Growing Professional Learning Communities
Life as a literacy coach can be busy and overwhelming. There are meetings to attend, teachers to sit beside, and students of concern brought to our attention. Many of us...
Building a Schoolwide Coaching Culture
Anytime I ask for qualitative feedback about my performance as a school leader, I risk a negative response. This is especially true when I create a space for open comments....
Words of Reflection for New Coaches
One afternoon, I opened my work email and found a lovely note from three of our new instructional coaches that had been sent to the whole coaching team. I found...
When the Best Coaching Is Offering Advice
A dialogue is a meeting of the minds, two or more people sharing ideas with each other. It is not a dialogue if I withhold my ideas, and it is...
Everything I Need to Know About Teaching Children, I Learned Through Conferring
Have you ever been asked that question, “If you could take only three things to an island, what would they be?” I know my answers change as time evolves and...
Coaching Minute: Keeping Writers in Motion
Ruth Ayres explains the importance of keeping writers in motion and ways in which instructional coaches can empower routines that will help students keep writing.
Coaching Minute: Find a Network of Coaches
Inga Omondi encourages instructional coaches to curate a network of others who are doing similar work.
And Other Duties As Assigned…
One of my favorite lines in my own and many other instructional coaches’ job description is “and other duties as assigned.” It is the gateway and loophole that both expands...
A Word to Aspiring Coaches
Not long ago, my district had a few openings for instructional coaches. The openings were an exciting opportunity, as our schools were considering a return to somewhat “normal” instruction after...
Have a Little Fun and Encourage Colleagues
Instructional coach Inga Omondi offers wise (and fun) advice on how to uplift and encourage colleagues.
Offer a Mirror: How Coaches Empower Reflection
“I don’t know! It’s just that I get in there and I start teaching it, and then things happen...like someone has a connection or someone doesn’t understand a word and...
Fine-Tuning Our Coaching with an Equalizer Model
When I was a kid, my dad had a component stereo system. In addition to the cassette deck, turntable, and receiver, he had an equalizer. The dials, switches, horizontal fader...
Mantras Matter
Everyone deserves a thought partner is a mantra that anchors my beliefs and guides my behaviors. I say it often. Sometimes in my head. Sometimes in the company of colleagues....
Coaching Through the Student Door
The number-one thing teachers never have enough of is time. During pandemic teaching, time is even more precious, because planning tasks takes much longer as we all think about how...
Coaching Minute: Principals and the Change Process
Principal Lee Snider talks about the change process with teachers.
Teacher to Literacy Coach Transition
Literacy coaches Cathy Mere and Kelly Hoenie talk about the transition from being a teacher to becoming a coach.
