As a literacy coach, I always have a few of the same things on my end-of-the-year to-do list -- plus a few new ones this year.
Category: coaching
Coaching à la Carte: Stronger Together Blog Series
In this post I’ve curated some quick coaching possibilities: coaching à la carte, if you will. Each offering on this menu has the potential to have an immediate impact on student learning in the workshop with a minimal time commitment from teachers. It might not be the gold standard, four-course meal of a coaching cycle, but each option is designed to nourish and energize teacher(s), students, and coaches with a quick burst of collaboration.
My Top Three Coaching Tools: Planning for Small Groups
Today on the blog, Jessica Carey shares three go-to coaching tools that all support planning for small groups.
Teachers Supporting Teachers – Some Ideas for Literacy Coaches and School Leaders
This year, my coaching partner, Vicki, and I are trying out a new model for our coaching.
My Conferring Toolkit: Our Favorite Things Blog Series
In this post, I'll share everything that's inside my conferring toolkit for writing workshop, as well as how I organize it all.
Building Each Other Up, Cheering Each Other On
THIS is what teachers need right now. This is my work as a coach, and this is what we can all do for each other in this challenging time.
Literacy Coaches: Thinking Ahead to May & June — Already?!
Here are three things I'm working on, right now, in the first week of February.
Thinking Big About Writing
The writing work in our building is transforming, and it is exciting to be a part of the change, to witness the impact on kids as we make our workshops increasingly authentic and compelling. We are constantly reflecting on what’s working—what’s leading to measurable shifts in how we plan for writing (and how kids experience writing)—as well as where we might be getting stuck: places there is genuine motivation to transform the task, and yet, our best intentions are still missing the mark in some significant way.
I Love Watching You Write: Research from the World of Sports Applied in the Classroom
Research on effective sports coaching suggests adults would do well by kids to cut down on criticism and focus more on the joy simply playing.
Be a Writing Coach.
Would you like to help your striving writers so they can be more independent? Try a coaching conference to move them forward!
Coaching Writers in the Small Group
Coaches of young athletes often offer tips, reminders, and suggestions from the sidelines in hopes of eliciting the best possible performance from the team. As teachers of writing, we can borrow this structure in our small group settings.
Let’s Talk About Methods for Conferring
When I was a new teacher, I learned from Lucy Calkins that there are basically four overall methods to choose from when planning instruction: 1) demonstration, 2) coaching, 3) inquiry, and 4) telling/explaining. This four-method framework is useful for thinking about conferring.