Will a literacy coach/reading specialist be part of your school-wide literacy plan? What model will he/she follow? How will the administrator support the literacy specialist in his role at the beginning and throughout her tenure?
A literacy coach/reading specialist will not be part of my school-wide plan. Last year I tried to hire a literacy specialist and I did not get one applicant. I was disappointed but a little relieved because I was filling the position by not replacing an English teacher. We ended up having a surge of new students and had I not filled the English position I would have had very large classes and a faculty that wanted to throw me out the window. At any rate, my numbers are similar this year and so I cannot reallocate any of my staff and cannot afford a new position.
Instead, I plan to build on the professional development I began last year. I had a core of teachers who agreed to go through some extensive training (they earned graduate credit for it) who will be getting more training this year. I hope to have them act as coaches for the rest of the faculty. It will end up closest to Model 4: Peer Coaching and Mentoring. This will take some trust-building and I'm pretty sure not all of my staff will be open to it. Nevertheless, I will try to support my faculty by making it possible to observe each other, by providing professional development, and by keeping literacy on the radar among all the other things we need to do during the school year. I will also listen clearly to what my faculty/coaches tell me we need.
A literacy coach/reading specialist will be part of our school approach. I was very fortunate to have on staff a World Languages teacher who is very gung-ho and has been researching and experimenting with literacy approaches for the past several years. At the same time, our World Language numbers could justify the reduction in staffing. She was delighted to sign on in that new role and is doing work on her official certification. Her classwork will be done this summer, I believe, and then she will do practicum next summer.
She wil have a dual role this year. First, teaching three classes in Critical Reading for students whom we have identified through multiple data points as struggling with readers.
Second, and at least as importantly, she will be working with individual teachers through various individual and group professional development activities. Those will begin in our couple of staff days before school. Angela has already organized a diverse literacy advisory team that will meet on a regular basis. That team is drawn from across departments and roles in the school.
This will be a year of significant trial and error, although Angela has already visited Yarmouth HS and Bangor HS, both of which have had high school literacy programs in place for years.
My position has been renamed and redefined several times and in my mind still lacks clarity. Teachers prefer the direct service and resource specialist aspect of my work and approach me as such, but that can quickly become all-consuming, preventing much of the professional development work from moving forward.
I appreciated the Six-Models of Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists (p. 196) and hope to share this with my administrators as another opportunity to develop a common understanding of these changing roles in our district. The coaching aspects of my position will likely shift more towards a Formal Literacy Coaching Model with much of my time spent in classrooms working with teachers. Last year I began working more closely in classrooms in side-by-side teaching and targeting of student and teacher needs. This model has worked well and has connected me to the pulse of the school in much deeper ways.
The mutual support between administrator and coach is a critical issue. From my personal experience, open communication is essential to unearthing and distilling a common vision. Without this common vision and direction, I think it’s much like treading water. Everyone is working very hard, but not getting anywhere.
The literacy coach is an important member of the literacy team, for sure. There is no simple job description, which makes planning a challenge. Glad these models may guide your work. Will this sort of role factor into your plan in the future Shawn?
A literacy coach will only be part of my school’s plan if I can convince the administration of the need and the fit of such a person AND can get myself hired as a literacy coach. I will likely write my job description. In the past few years I have existed somewhere in between models 2, 3 and 4 (even some 5) of coaching (I never observe some of the folks I coach, but I do observe some others as it was my job to do so; additionally the school tends towards a mentor model of operating). It was helpful to read Vogt’s short bits on the history of the models and support of model 3 because I was under the impression that it was my professional responsibility to move toward model 5 (our Bronx school has a Peer Observation system that follows the three step plan; they just presented at a conference). However, as I moved in that direction (pushed a bit by higher ups), I felt less comfortable. In fact, I often felt like I was losing my best self. After all, as a coach I would certainly know some things, but so would the teachers and who am I to prescribe. Some would say it is my fear of my own authority. Vogt might say it was, in part, good coaching technique. And yet, I see the need for some lesson planning support as well, so at what number does that put me? I suspect that administrative support will be difficult to get because literacy is not a buzz word in my community. Ideally, I would answer to the Head but be responsible for running the team. I would encourage the Head to be part of the team and be a presence – a coach – because we have a history of the Head being uninvolved with instruction (legitimately to a point).
5 comments:
A literacy coach/reading specialist will not be part of my school-wide plan. Last year I tried to hire a literacy specialist and I did not get one applicant. I was disappointed but a little relieved because I was filling the position by not replacing an English teacher. We ended up having a surge of new students and had I not filled the English position I would have had very large classes and a faculty that wanted to throw me out the window. At any rate, my numbers are similar this year and so I cannot reallocate any of my staff and cannot afford a new position.
Instead, I plan to build on the professional development I began last year. I had a core of teachers who agreed to go through some extensive training (they earned graduate credit for it) who will be getting more training this year. I hope to have them act as coaches for the rest of the faculty. It will end up closest to Model 4: Peer Coaching and Mentoring. This will take some trust-building and I'm pretty sure not all of my staff will be open to it. Nevertheless, I will try to support my faculty by making it possible to observe each other, by providing professional development, and by keeping literacy on the radar among all the other things we need to do during the school year. I will also listen clearly to what my faculty/coaches tell me we need.
A literacy coach/reading specialist will be part of our school approach. I was very fortunate to have on staff a World Languages teacher who is very gung-ho and has been researching and experimenting with literacy approaches for the past several years. At the same time, our World Language numbers could justify the reduction in staffing. She was delighted to sign on in that new role and is doing work on her official certification. Her classwork will be done this summer, I believe, and then she will do practicum next summer.
She wil have a dual role this year. First, teaching three classes in Critical Reading for students whom we have identified through multiple data points as struggling with readers.
Second, and at least as importantly, she will be working with individual teachers through various individual and group professional development activities. Those will begin in our couple of staff days before school. Angela has already organized a diverse literacy advisory team that will meet on a regular basis. That team is drawn from across departments and roles in the school.
This will be a year of significant trial and error, although Angela has already visited Yarmouth HS and Bangor HS, both of which have had high school literacy programs in place for years.
My position has been renamed and redefined several times and in my mind still lacks clarity. Teachers prefer the direct service and resource specialist aspect of my work and approach me as such, but that can quickly become all-consuming, preventing much of the professional development work from moving forward.
I appreciated the Six-Models of Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists (p. 196) and hope to share this with my administrators as another opportunity to develop a common understanding of these changing roles in our district. The coaching aspects of my position will likely shift more towards a Formal Literacy Coaching Model with much of my time spent in classrooms working with teachers. Last year I began working more closely in classrooms in side-by-side teaching and targeting of student and teacher needs. This model has worked well and has connected me to the pulse of the school in much deeper ways.
The mutual support between administrator and coach is a critical issue. From my personal experience, open communication is essential to unearthing and distilling a common vision. Without this common vision and direction, I think it’s much like treading water. Everyone is working very hard, but not getting anywhere.
The literacy coach is an important member of the literacy team, for sure. There is no simple job description, which makes planning a challenge. Glad these models may guide your work. Will this sort of role factor into your plan in the future Shawn?
A literacy coach will only be part of my school’s plan if I can convince the administration of the need and the fit of such a person AND can get myself hired as a literacy coach. I will likely write my job description. In the past few years I have existed somewhere in between models 2, 3 and 4 (even some 5) of coaching (I never observe some of the folks I coach, but I do observe some others as it was my job to do so; additionally the school tends towards a mentor model of operating). It was helpful to read Vogt’s short bits on the history of the models and support of model 3 because I was under the impression that it was my professional responsibility to move toward model 5 (our Bronx school has a Peer Observation system that follows the three step plan; they just presented at a conference). However, as I moved in that direction (pushed a bit by higher ups), I felt less comfortable. In fact, I often felt like I was losing my best self. After all, as a coach I would certainly know some things, but so would the teachers and who am I to prescribe. Some would say it is my fear of my own authority. Vogt might say it was, in part, good coaching technique. And yet, I see the need for some lesson planning support as well, so at what number does that put me?
I suspect that administrative support will be difficult to get because literacy is not a buzz word in my community. Ideally, I would answer to the Head but be responsible for running the team. I would encourage the Head to be part of the team and be a presence – a coach – because we have a history of the Head being uninvolved with instruction (legitimately to a point).
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