ISSUE BRIEF: LITERACY COACHING

What is literacy coaching and why should it be supported through the Striving Readers Act?

Literacy coaching is a form of job-embedded professional development for working teachers. Literacy coaches act as mediators between schools’ and districts’ visions for literacy and the ability of teachers to carry out this vision at the classroom level. Literacy coaches improve the quality of instruction that teachers provide so that they, in turn, can improve students’ literacy achievement. The term literacy coach indicates that the coach works across the related areas of reading, writing, and oral language development.

In 2003, the Alliance for Excellent Education estimated that the United States will need 10,000 literacy coaches to support the professional development needs of teachers who work with the 9 million grade 4–12 students who are reading below basic levels. The need continues to rise as schools and districts see literacy coaching as a way to help them meet AYP targets under NCLB. In fact, there are now coaches for many other areas besides literacy.

To include support for literacy coaches as part of Striving Readers legislation makes sense. Literacy coaches help not only by assisting teachers who work with students reading significantly below grade level, but also by helping all middle and high school teachers learn to develop students’ literacies in their content disciplines. Through Striving Readers, coaches will work with teachers implementing intervention programs and then help regular content teachers as these students transition and continue to improve their literacy abilities in discipline-specific classes.

What is the evidence base for literacy coaching? 

There is growing evidence concerning the effectiveness of literacy coaching. Bulleted summaries of rigorous studies to date are included below. For additional research summaries and information about the Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse, please see the reverse side of this page.

• The South Carolina Reading Initiative (SCRI) is a multi-year, site-based, statewide professional development effort to train and support grade 1–3 literacy coaches and teachers. By providing extensive, long-term professional development support to participating coaches and teachers, SCRI schools achieved impressive gains. Struggling readers in these schools were able to read more difficult texts and achieve higher test scores than students in non-SCRI schools, and fewer needed special education plans.
  
  
• The National Louis Model for Literacy Coaches in Chicago Public Schools study showed significant changes in coaches’ understanding of literacy through professional development, changes in classroom teachers’ practices when coaches receive ongoing support at the school level, and subsequent increases in students’ achievement.
  
  
• The Alabama Secondary Reading Initiative Study determined four important lessons for reading improvement:  (1) educators need to be responsive; a one-size-fits-all approach will not work; (2) partnerships among teachers, administrators, and schools are needed to create a coherent and well-defined K–12 continuum of reading instruction; (3) secondary teachers and schools need to be provided with consistent support from coaches and other staff; and (4) educators need to be attentive to the local, state, and national policy environments related to reading.

Together these studies illustrate that literacy coaching is a promising practice for improving teachers’ instructional quality and student learning.

Additional Summaries of Recent Research on Literacy Coaching

• Ohio Teaching Learning Model (TLM) (Catherine Rosemary, Kathleen Roskos, and Elizabeth Day, Principal Investigators) – This study included 21 literacy specialists and 259 teachers working in 19 Reading First schools in six Ohio school districts. It represents a research design model with many elements that might also be applied, like SCRI above, to Striving Readers. The researchers found that changes in both coach and teacher knowledge were significant and that fidelity between tiers of implementation were quite strong for content knowledge. They discovered that coaches spent more time doing group professional development and only approximately 20% of their time doing one-on-one coaching. The instruments designed for this project were found to be technically adequate.  Although no direct relationship between the professional development and student achievement was proved, the study shows positive differences for the same students at two points in time, one at the outset of Reading First and the other a year later, after teacher learning experiences.
  
  
• A Three Year Journey―The Evolution of Coaches and Coaching in Reading First Schools  (Rita Bean and Naomi Zigmond, Principal Investigators) – The purpose of this evaluation study was to examine how reading coaches allocated their time to the various activities that related to their positions in Reading First schools in Pennsylvania. Bean and Zigmond found that there was considerable variance in the ways that reading coaches spent their time, as evidenced by their logs. Over the three-year period, Reading First coaches spent the most time doing group-oriented professional development of teachers. They moved to spending significantly more time doing one-on-one classroom coaching over the three years, although it still involved only 15–20% of their time. Over the course of the three years, coaches assumed more administrative tasks, not necessarily a positive outcome. In year 3, new coaches spent their time quite similarly to more experienced coaches. It seems that the roles of coaches had been clarified so that new coaches were now more able to quickly assume their specific job responsibilities. Overall, student achievement in the Reading First schools has increased.
  
  
• The Middle School Literacy Coach: Roles, Contexts, and Connections to Teaching (Anthony Smith, Principal Investigator) – This is a qualitative case study that examined the coaching experiences of three middle school literacy/instructional coaches, four principals, and six teachers in two school districts. Smith found that coaches’ time needed to be better protected so that they could spend more time on one-to-one coaching in teachers’ classrooms. Additionally, he found that without prior professional development, teachers and coaches seemed to be talking past each other without effective shared vocabulary or strategies about teaching literacy in content disciplines. His results signal concepts that need to be resolved before literacy coaching can be more effective at the middle and high school levels.

How could I learn more about literacy coaching?

The National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association have developed the Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse as a support to coaches themselves, schools, districts, researchers, policymakers, and parents. The site outlines qualifications for literacy coaches and contains additional briefs on literacy coaching. For more information, please visit http://www.literacycoachingonline.org.