Recommended Texts on Literacy Coaching

Need a place to learn more about coaching or for new ideas to support coaches and teachers in your district?  Experienced coaches and “coaches of coaches” offer a “best of the best” list of professional reading.

The Literacy Coach’s Survival Guide
Experienced literacy educator and consultant, Cathy Toll, has organized this book around three questions: How do I promote change? What does a successful literacy coach do? and How do I coach in difficult situations? Toll believes successful literacy coaching is at the heart of relationships and growth. She can help you be a coach who is successful in supporting teachers, and more important, students. Toll, Cathy (2005). Newark, DE: IRA.

The Role and Qualifications of the Reading Coach
This position statement from the International Reading Association (IRA, 2004) defines reading coaching, establishes the need for this component of professional development, and outlines what reading coaches should know and be able to do.

NCTE Reading Initiative Study Group and Coaching Resources
This strategy-rich notebook includes: study group experiences to identify and address the literacy challenges in your school, protocols for peer observation and debriefing, vignettes and recommendations from NCTE coaches, administrators and teachers, and more. Includes a DVD, as well as over 300 pages of professional reading addressing literacy coaching and teacher learning (2004).

Leadership Capacity For Lasting School Improvement
Leadership capacity depends on understanding the connection between participation and skillfulness. Lambert helps us understand how to develop participation and create structures that let educators work and learn together and share leadership responsibilities. When skillfully approached, professional development is as much about adult learning as student learning.  Lambert, Linda (2003). ASCD.

Learning from Teaching in Literacy Education: New Perspectives on Professional Development
Rodgers and Pinnell provide insights into the complexity of providing effective professional development for literacy educators and the challenges of bringing about fundamental change to literacy instruction. The research and experience represented encompass varied models and settings. What binds them together is a common theme: true expertise means developing internal systems for learning while teaching and teaching while learning.  Rodgers, Emily M. and Pinnell, Gay Su (2002). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Systems For Change In Literacy Education
This is a main source of information for coaching and bringing about change.  Every chapter helps coaches mentor teachers in all aspects of teaching and growing as professional educators. Section Three provides three excellent chapters on analyzing teaching in preparation for coaching, analyzing literacy teaching, coaching for shifts in teaching, and establishing the analytic/reflective cycle.  Lyons, Carol A. and Pinnell, Gay Su (2001). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Redefining Staff Development: A Collaborative Model For Teachers And Administrators
The focus of this resource is changing the way staff development is conducted—from one or two-day one-shot sessions in which teachers passively receive knowledge to a study group format, whereby teachers are actively involved in constructing knowledge. Read the entire book to understand a framework for understanding how study groups and coaching teachers can be most effective.  Three chapters focus specifically on coaching.  Robb, Laura (2000). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Teacher Study Groups: Building Community through Dialogue and Reflection
This text includes many practical suggestions for organizing, facilitating, and dealing with group dynamics within a study group, including 1) Defining what a study group is; 2) Getting started and making decisions about the structure and organization of meetings; 3) Facilitating a meeting; and 4) Incorporating reflection and teacher research into the process.  Short et al. (1998). Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Inside Learning Network Schools
The Learning Network is a site-based, PD initiative that focuses on literacy and the growth of skillful teachers. The Network is based on principles of student-centered teaching and learning that apply across all curriculum areas in all grades and with all students, principles consistent with recent efforts at school restructuring. Herzog, Marilyn (Ed) 1997. NY: Richard C. Owen Publishers, Inc.