By Barbara J. Walker
A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm
In schools and organizations, leadership shifts from one individual to another according to the situation and an individual’s expertise. Individuals realize that they need to be prepared to share leadership, taking their turn when needed. Literacy coaches often share literacy leadership with teachers. They look to teachers to provide informal leadership. This informal teacher leadership is paramount when literacy coaching spreads throughout a school.
Teachers in schools often share leadership in planning thematic units and collaborative activities. As teachers work together, informal leaders come to light, and they enthusiastically revitalize other teachers in their effort to improve school learning. These informal leaders are often called teacher-leaders.
Informal teacher-leaders often form small groups to talk about shared interests such as improving comprehension, encouraging student strategy use, and augmenting their instructional talk. In these small groups, teacher-leaders promote discussions about literacy and literacy instruction.
Teacher-leaders are open-minded and respectful of others’ views. In fact, they draw out multiple viewpoints as they demonstrate tolerance and acceptance of all ideas. These small, collaborative groups often develop into larger learning communities.
As teachers collaboratively discuss student learning and their practice, they create a learning community. Although the focus on student learning is paramount, the discussions are powerful as they also involve teachers sharing their perspectives on what and why literacy instruction works. Discussing multiple perspectives within a learning community helps teachers understand why they teach as they do.
In fact, study groups often emerge out of the learning community and are organized around a particular theme or topic. The teachers and teacher-leaders collaboratively select a topic like struggling readers, strategy instruction, or comprehension.
Study groups have typically revolved around discussing books related to a chosen topic. Having everyone read the same professional book develops a common language around the theme selected. In these situations, the teacher-leaders guide the collaborative interactions and encourage teachers to share their perspectives.
For instance, one learning community in the middle grades wanted to focus on comprehension. The teachers had well-developed knowledge of literal comprehension, but wanted to know more about higher level comprehension instruction and student learning. So they selected Building Academic Language: Essential Practices for Content Classrooms, Grades 5—12 by Jeff Zwiers (Jossey—Bass) to read and study as a group.
Within a learning community, both teacher-leaders and literacy coaches provide ongoing leadership and share expertise. They use collaborative discussions yet challenge each others’ thinking. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other, taking time to sustain thoughtful conversations. An important characteristic of leadership, therefore, is the ability to collaborate with others.
Literacy coaches, like teacher-leaders, encourage teachers as they grow and change. However, literacy coaches also challenge teachers to transform their instruction to improve student learning. Unlike teacher-leaders, literacy coaches support teacher practice within the classroom.
Literacy coaching involves discussions, but it also involves joint planning, observing, analyzing, and reflecting. Before instruction begins, the literacy coach and the teacher plan a lesson to promote student learning. While instructing, teachers are immersed in implementing instruction and adapting it as needed. Literacy coaches observe student learning and the teacher actions that produced it. After the lesson, the teacher steps back to rethink and critically analyze the instruction. In other words, teachers reflect on their instructional decisions, comparing them with their personal assumptions about reading.
Later, the teacher and the literacy coach jointly discuss their perceptions of the lesson as well as possible alternatives that have a high likelihood of increasing student learning. Thus, the literacy coach plays a key role in developing ongoing support for literacy instruction and an opportunity for teachers to reflect on and discuss their instruction.
Literacy coaches support teachers’ practice by lending a hand when troublesome learning incidents occur. To offer support, literacy coaches think about what teachers know and the language they use to explain their actions. They observe and analyze teacher practices, then engage teachers in collaborative reflection.
For all coaching interactions, literacy coaches use the teachers’ language to offer suggestions and explanations. When the literacy coaches discuss the instructional event, they use concrete examples of the observed actions. Thus, literacy coaches provide immediate feedback about instructional interactions, teacher practices, and student learning. After joint analysis, these discussions continue within the learning community. Thus, literacy coaches and teacher-leaders facilitate teachers’ reflection on student learning and their own theories of practice.
Additionally, literacy coaches play a critical role in Response to Intervention (RTI). They often encourage teachers to reflect on instruction in small and large collaborative groups. What’s more, they support teachers in implementing instructional options for students who are at risk for learning to read and write. During instruction, they monitor student progress by observing student learning and evaluating student work. These are aspects of RTI where literacy coaches can share leadership. Whether the goal is forming a learning community, supporting teacher change, or monitoring student progress, the literacy coach works with the entire school to improve student learning.
In learning communities, literacy coaches and teacher-leaders discuss instruction with teachers as everyone reworks their thinking and beliefs. They discuss their values about student learning and theories of literacy. As a result, literacy coaches and teacher-leaders become catalysts for changing practices, beliefs, and values about literacy instruction.
IRA President Barbara J. Walker is a reading education professor at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Literacy leadership and literacy coaches. (August 2008). Reading Today 6(1), 18.
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