Research shows that the most important factor on a student’s reading growth is quality teaching. A program or intervention protocol can be helpful, but time with a well-qualified instructor is what can be the difference for most children. In Bean and Dagan’s text, Best Practices of LIteracy Leaders: Keys to School Improvement, they discuss the importance of teacher learning and development. “Ensuring quality learning of students - and teachers - requires an all-school effort that is based on collaboration and shared leadership as a means of fostering collective responsibility among school personnel”(Bean & Dagen, 2012 , pg. 369). Many schools have time for grade level professional learning communities or participate in a whole-staff learning community, but without the proper purpose and practices, these can prove to be ineffective. It is important for teachers to engage in collaborative learning to ensure that their instruction is appropriate, engaging, and meaningful to students. Throughout my courses I have had the opportunity to engage in collaborative learning with my peers on topics like student engagement during guided reading and designing engaging lessons for our students to participate in. It is necessary for teachers to collaborate to ensure that all students are engaged in quality instruction.
COaching cycles
In the NLGL program, I engaged in two coaching cycles. For both cycles I worked with second grade teachers and focused on small group literacy intervention practices. These exercises helped me see the value of a committed literacy coach in both teacher and student learning. “The focus of their work is to help teachers enhance their instruction in order to support students' reading and writing development”(Bean & Dagen, 2012, pg. 44). These coaching cycles allowed me to share my strong knowledge of literacy intervention practices with my peers and have an impact on student growth and learning. By collaborating with my colleagues we were able to enhance small group instruction to ensure quality and engaging instruction for their students.
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Needs Assessment and Strategic Plan
In ECI 508, I worked with a team of second grade teachers to identify and assess the needs of their students and created a plan to support them with professional development and implementation. The goal was to create a fluency intervention that correlates with current EL learning to help facilitate fluency progress and knowledge building. My plan included professional development, modeling, and fluency resources. I also built in days for classroom observations of the fluency interventions to provide for support and feedback. The team specifically requested professional development and strategies pertaining to fluency intervention, but the data showed that they had students that also had comprehension difficulties. As a next step, I will be hosting a professional development discussing comprehension and the skills that need to be addressed. I will be leading them through a similar coaching cycle and strategic plan for comprehension interventions.
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ABC Book Club
In ECI 540 we engaged in an Action Book Club and read the book, Who’s Doing the Work? How to Say Less so Readers can do More by Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris. This text addressed the areas of read alouds, the reading process, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading. In their book, they explore the process of reading instruction and compare traditional practices to more student-led instruction referred to as “next generation reading instruction”. Traditional reading instruction places a significant amount of work on the instructor. Next generation reading instruction requires teachers to provide students with more opportunities to work through the reading process and take ownership of their learning. “When children inhabit worlds where teachers let them do the work, they learn from their productive effort, become empowered to take charge of their reading lives, and very often, surprise us with what they can do”(Burkins & Yaris, 2016, pg. 144). This text supports the idea of dialogic discussion in reading instruction and serves as a resource for student-driven literacy practices.
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PLT Book Study
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Becoming a Literacy Leader by Jennifer Allen should be essential reading for any educator that intends to become or is a literacy coach in any capacity. Allen’s book encapsulates and addresses the nuts and bolts of the position, but also the integral role that a literacy coach plays within a school. One of the most unexpected, yet needed aspects of Allen’s writing is her ability to break down complex goals or ideas and specify action steps for each. She illustrates each key idea with a goal, the actions she took to achieve it, and a real-life example of how it looked in her schools. She even provides examples of failures and her reflections that turned them around for the better next time she attempted it. This book can serve as a reference and guide for years to come.
One of the ideas that stuck with me most were the many ways in which she supported teachers in her role as a coach. She took great care in creating a space rich with resources for teachers to use and welcoming enough to make them feel at ease to ask her questions or share new ideas they had. Allen also made herself available to coaching veteran teachers and implemented a strong model of coaching support for new teachers. Finally, she implemented thoughtful study groups and school-wide PLCs to promote teacher development and learning. Her willingness, thoughtfulness, and intention behind all of her support actions created a trusting relationship between her and staff. It also directly benefited all students at the school due to staff buy-in and continuous learning. This is the type of environment that is conducive to staff engagement which leads to quality instruction and student engagement. |
References
- Allen, J. (2016). Becoming a literacy leader: supporting learning and change. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.
- Bean, R. M., & Dagen, A. S. (Eds.). (2012). Best Practices of Literacy Leaders: Keys to School Improvement. New York, NY: GUILFORD.
- Burkins, J. M., & Yaris, K. (2016). Whos doing the work?: how to say less so your readers can do more. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.
- Knight, J. (2009). Instructional coaching. In. J. Knight (Ed). Coaching approaches and perspectives(pg. 29-55). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Claire Straub
NLGL Literacy Cohort
Spring 2020
NLGL Literacy Cohort
Spring 2020