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Literacy Coaching

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Fellow literacy coach Sheri Barsottelli and I visited with Heather Bitka and her kindergarten students at Roy B. Kelley Elementary School today, and when we got there, we learned that THEIR CHICKS WERE BEGINNING TO HATCH! As you might imagine, this made for quite an exciting start to the morning. What was even more fun was watching the kids’ reactions when they learned that they could Skype into Molly Koelle’s first grade classrooms to announce…

“Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.”  CCR.W.6 Last week, I had the honor of visiting Molly Koelle’s classroom. Molly is a teacher at Roy B. Kelley Elementary School in Lockport, New York. I’ve been supporting teachers and administrators there for several years now, and when Molly invited me to drop in and observe her in action during her literacy block, I knew I would…

It’s been interesting, what I’ve learned about the schools and the kids and the teachers that I’ve worked with since I’ve made walk-throughs a fundamental part of planning professional learning experiences and assessing the impact that the work might be having. Might is an important word. I began asking to walk through buildings and visit classrooms prior to beginning staff development a couple of years ago, when I realized that I needed more information before…

One of my friends retired recently, and while we were out celebrating her new future, she got to thinking about the number of kids she taught during her thirty year career. Her estimated total hovered somewhere around 3500, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she still remembered every student’s name, where they went on to work or learn or play later in life, and what their favorite books were. She was this kind of teacher,…

This week, several people in my professional learning network have asked me to stream my demo lessons and share more photos of the work that I do inside of schools. Explaining why I can’t do that  in 140 characters or less on Twitter is something of a challenge, so for what it’s worth, I’m sharing my thoughts about it here. The truth is, I wrestle with issues regarding transparency and boundaries quite a bit. Sometimes,…

Hey–there is an interesting conversation taking place over here. I jumped in because the issues raised here are particularly relevant to the work that I….and a whole lot of other people I  know…..do. A theme has been emerging from my own learning over the last few years, and Bass digs into it in ways that I respect. He advocates for leading change by beginning with what is. He speaks to a reality that I understand,…

Last week, I had the opportunity to facilitate the first session of WNYLIT, a new forum for literacy leaders in our area, hosted at the Carrier Center in Angola, New York by the fine folks at Erie 2 BOCES (thanks Theresa)! Twenty literacy coaches, administrators, and teachers came together to explore the benefits and challenges of building relationships with those aim to serve. We used a protocol for rich text discussion to explore several pieces…

The folks over at Common Craft have gifted us with another gracefully simplistic video–this one is about augmented reality. This has everything to do with literacy. It has everything to do with learning. Imagine the possibilities. They already exist.

Last week, I invited a fellow of the WNY Young Writers’ Studio and literacy-coach-in-training to accompany me on a visit to Long Island, New York, where we met with junior and senior high school writing teachers. A portion of this visit was spent exploring the Studio model and some of the more powerful practices that guide our work with teachers and young people. On the last day, we had the opportunity to co-teach inside of…

As an independent literacy coach, the districts that I serve contract with me to provide coaching inside of their schools as they work to identify those who may want to assume these positions internally over time. Part of my work involves supporting potential coaches as they learn more about what this work entails and how they might approach it themselves. Over the last two years, I’ve put several different opportunities in place for those who…