Ohio Creates New Career Path With Literacy Specialist Endorsement

by Beth Cady

IRA’s latest Standards for Reading Professionals document plays a key role in Ohio’s leading-edge efforts in credentialing reading coaches. The state has added a Literacy Specialist Endorsement to its Teacher Education and Licensure Standards, with approval from the Ohio State Board of Education.

While the title may be different from literacy or reading coach, the job description and qualifications are not. Ohio’s Literacy Specialists are reading professionals, knowledgeable in literacy pedagogy and counted on for leadership. They provide professional development in school settings.

Marilyn Troyer, associate superintendent for the Center for the Teaching Profession at Ohio’s Department of Education, attributes Ohio’s pioneering effort to a combination of factors. Along with the increased emphasis on professional development came the realization that modeling and coaching are what make an impact, not a one-day workshop.

To achieve the state’s goals for early literacy achievement and to prepare children for high-stakes testing, Ohio chose to invest in its teachers. Troyer hopes to retain more good teachers through this new career advancement alternative.

“In the past, career options took good teachers out of the classroom,” Troyer said. “The Literacy Specialist Endorsement creates an opportunity for career advancement while keeping the literacy expert connected closely to the classroom.”

With the support and guidance of the Ohio Department of Education, a consortium of Ohio’s universities has assumed leadership responsibilities for literacy education and professional development. The combined faculties of these universities represent a collective community that understands the state’s vision, values high-quality professional development, and is networked with language arts teachers.

Organized and coordinated by professors at John Carroll University, the Literacy Specialist Project operates within the Ohio Literacy Initiative, a framework for planning and implementing educational improvement and change. Cathy Rosemary, director of the Literacy Specialist Project, said, “Our research so far shows curriculum being implemented with strong fidelity. We also have findings from studies of teacher learning which have shown a connection between the teacher’s participation in the professional development and improved teaching.”

Ohio based its Literacy Specialist Endorsement standards on the International Reading Association’s Standards for Reading Professionals, Revised 2003, with special attention to the criteria for reading specialist/literacy coaches and teacher educators. The Ohio standards also promote a research agenda: The Literacy Specialist Endorsement requires an understanding of research methodologies as they apply to reading and writing, engagement in inquiry to advance understanding of teaching reading and writing, and collaboration with other professionals for the purpose of advancing knowledge of reading and writing research.

Field faculty members provide the core curriculum through three-hour sessions to cohorts of literacy specialists who teach the teachers in their schools. In 2004, the program was expanded to encompass pre-K–12 literacy, and core curricula were developed for early childhood and adolescents. Over the past five years, 22 field faculty, 322 literacy specialists, and 3,990 classroom teachers who reach approximately 120,000 students annually have participated. For further information about Ohio’s program, visit www.literacyspecialist.org.

Beth Cady is the International Reading Association’s public information officer.

Ohio creates new career path with Literacy Specialist Endorsement, by Beth Cady. (June 2005). Reading Today, 22(6), 1.