Table Of ContentTHE LITERACY COACH’S HANDBOOK
SOLVING PROBLEMS IN THE TEACHING OF LITERACY
Cathy Collins Block, Series Editor
RECENT VOLUMES
Reading to Learn: Lessons from Exemplary Fourth-Grade Classrooms
Richard L. Allington and Peter H. Johnston
A Sound Start: Phonemic Awareness Lessons for Reading Success
Christine E. McCormick, Rebecca N. Throneburg, and Jean M. Smitley
Organizing and Managing the Language Arts Block: A Professional Development Guide
Lesley Mandel Morrow
Teaching Strategic Processes in Reading
Janice F. Almasi
Exploring the Literature of Fact:
Children’s Nonfiction Trade Books in the Elementary Classroom
Barbara Moss
Literacy and Young Children: Research-Based Practices
Edited by Diane M. Barone and Lesley Mandel Morrow
Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction: Engaging Classrooms, Lifelong Learners
Emily Anderson Swan
Struggling Readers: Assessment and Instruction in Grades K–6
Ernest Balajthy and Sally Lipa-Wade
Explaining Reading: A Resource for Teaching Concepts, Skills, and Strategies
Gerald G. Duffy
Rethinking Reading Comprehension
Edited by Anne P. Sweet and Catherine E. Snow
Exemplary Literacy Teachers: Promoting Success for All Children in Grades K–5
Cathy Collins Block and John N. Mangieri
Assessment for Reading Instruction
Michael C. McKenna and Steven A. Stahl
Vocabulary Instruction: Research to Practice
Edited by James F. Baumann and Edward J. Kame’enui
The Reading Specialist: Leadership for the Classroom, School, and Community
Rita M. Bean
Multicultural and Multilingual Literacy and Language: Contexts and Practices
Edited by Fenice B. Boyd and Cynthia H. Brock, with Mary S. Rozendal
Teaching All the Children: Strategies for Developing Literacy in an Urban Setting
Edited by Diane Lapp, Cathy Collins Block, Eric J. Cooper,
James Flood, Nancy Roser, and Josefina Villamil Tinajero
Conceptual Foundations of Teaching Reading
Mark Sadoski
The Literacy Coach’s Handbook: A Guide to Research-Based Practice
Sharon Walpole and Michael C. McKenna
The
Literacy
Coach’s
HANDBOOK
A Guide to
Research-Based Practice
Sharon Walpole
Michael C. McKenna
THE GUILFORD PRESS
New York London
To the literacy coaches with whom we have worked
©2004TheGuilfordPress
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Walpole,Sharon.
Theliteracycoach’shandbook:aguidetoresearch-basedpractice/SharonWalpole,Michael
C.McKenna.
p.cm.—(Solvingproblemsintheteachingofliteracy)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN1-59385-034-4(pbk.:alk.paper)
1. Reading(Elementary)—UnitedStates. 2. Literacyprograms—UnitedStates—
Administration. 3. Groupworkineducation—UnitedStates. I. McKenna,Michael
C. II. Title. III. Series.
LB1573.W3642004
372.41—dc22
2004003282
About the Authors
SharonWalpole,PhD,isAssistantProfessorintheSchoolofEducationattheUniversityof
Delaware, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in literacy education.
UpongraduationfromtheUniversityofVirginia,shespent3yearsasafull-timeschoolad-
ministrator working with elementary teachers to develop schoolwide reading programs.
She has worked with literacy coaches in Iowa, Virginia, Georgia, and Delaware as part of
the Reading Excellence Act and Reading First Reforms. She was a member of the Center
forImprovementofEarlyReadingAchievementresearchteamstudyingthecharacteristics
of Beat the Odds schools. Her research interests include the design, implementation, and
evaluation of schoolwide reading programs.
MichaelC.McKenna,PhD,hasbeenProfessorofReadingatGeorgiaSouthernUniversity
since 1989. For 12 years prior to that, he was Professor of Reading at Wichita State Uni-
versity.Hehasauthored,coauthored,oredited12booksandmorethan80articles,chap-
ters,andtechnicalreportsonarangeofliteracytopics.HerecentlycoeditedtheHandbook
of Literacy and Technology, and was awarded both the National Reading Conference’s
Edward Fry Book Award and the American Library Association’s Award for Outstanding
AcademicBooks.Hisresearchinterestsincludecomprehensionincontentsettings,reading
attitudes, technology applications, and beginning reading.
v
Preface
TheLiteracyCoach’sHandbookrepresentsabest-evidencesummaryofaseriesof
topics that we have found to be essential to address in school-based reforms. For
literacy coaches, we hope it is an informed overview of important aspects of their
work and also a resource to guide their continued professional development. It is
alsoaninitialefforttosummarizetheresearchthatismostusefultoourwork,the
wisdom of practice that we are gaining from and with literacy coaches, and the
challenges we still face.
InChapter1,webeginwiththestoryofoneliteracycoachasshemovedfrom
heruniversity-basedundergraduatetrainingtotheclassroom,toimportantprofes-
sionalnetworks,andtoherjobascoachwithitsmanychallenges.Weknowmany
coacheshavehadsimilardevelopmentalexperiencesandfewhavehadthechanceto
reflectwithothersaboutthosetransitions.Thischaptercouldbecomparedwithrich
descriptive studies of the experiences of other coaches in other settings.
InChapter2,wedefineaschoolwidereadingprogramassomethingthatcan-
not be bought from any vendor of literacy materials, however well constructed.
We argue that a schoolwide program starts with an assessment system to identify
the needs of the children to be served and then locates and allocates all available
resources: time, groupings, and materials. The schoolwide program also addresses
the needs of adults in the school by scheduling time and allocating resources to
support their continued growth as professionals. This chapter could be compared
with school-based case studies to examine the costs and benefits of different
choices in allocating and coordinating resources.
InChapter3,weidentifyandsummarizeimportantsourcesofresearch-based
advice about literacy development that are useful in schools. This advice, while
necessarytotheworkofaliteracycoach,willnotbecompletelysufficientwithout
expansion. In fact, we hope that the research summarized in this chapter will be
quickly expanded with new findings, as researchers learn more about what makes
vi
Preface vii
a difference in the literacy lives of children and teachers. Therefore, we have also
includedstrategiesforlocatinginformationinhandbooks,books,andjournals.
Chapter 4 is a primer on assessment as it pertains to schoolwide initiatives.
Assessment in schools is complex, and it is particularly so for the literacy coach.
Viewed attheschoolandclassroom levels, assessment datacanestablish goalsfor
schoolwide programs, and it can provide access to appropriate instruction and in-
tervention for all children. Assessment can also prove divisive. We (and, we hope,
others) will continue to examine this issue and to write about assessment systems
that provide essential information to answer important questions about achieve-
ment in schools and its impact on children and teachers.
InChapter5,weaddresstheissueofinstructionalschedules.Weconsiderboth
theschedulingofprotectedtimeforliteracyinstructionandinterventioninwhole-
groupandneeds-basedgroupsacrossgradelevelsandthecontentofthatinstruction.
Weprovidesomeschedulingchoicesthatwehavepersonallyusedwithsuccess,and
thenwesharesampleschedulescreatedbyliteracycoachesdealingwithspecificre-
sourcesinspecificschools.Weknowliteracycoacheswhoidentifythecreationofan
elegant school-level schedule as one of the most crucial steps toward establishing
theirreadingprograms.They(andwe)wouldbenefitfromevaluationsoftherela-
tionshipbetweenspecificschedulingchoicesandgrowthinstudentachievementand
additional case studies of scheduling successes and failures.
Chapter 6 discusses scheduling issues within grade levels and classrooms. We
identify essential components of instruction in a comprehensive reading program,
and then nest them within grouping configurations and within the precious min-
utes available for instruction. Our goal in this chapter is to provide a model that
each literacy coach must revisit and refine time and time again, making it more
and more specifically geared toward the resources in his or her reading program.
Thischapterisaboutchoices;weknowthatitcouldbecomparedwithalternative
options, and we invite others to publish those options.
InChapter7,wetakeononeofthemanyobstaclesinschoolreforms—theis-
sue of materials selection. While we identify many sources that literacy coaches
mightconsultforinformationaboutcommercialmaterialsforliteracyinstruction,
we actually argue that true coaching demands knowledge not of the “ratings” of
materials but of their actual day-to-day contents. We provide a template for close
examination of literacy materials that we have used to help coaches make in-
formed choices and also to better understand the choices that they have made.
Likemostofourcolleagues,wewantteacherstohavematerialsconsistentwithre-
search and with best practice; however, we know that how materials are used is
moreimportantthanwhattheyare.Thischapterwouldbenefitfromcomparisons
withnewresearchontheeffectsofparticularinstructionalmaterialsonvariousin-
dices of literacy achievement.
Despitethebesteffortsofteachersandcoaches,somechildrenstillrequireinter-
vention in order to achieve and maintain adequate literacy skills and strategies. In
viii Preface
Chapter 8, we summarize the work of researchers who have helped us to concep-
tualizeinterventionandthenweprovideanoverviewofpotentialcontextsforinter-
ventionduringandafterschool.Wealsodescribeinterventionsthathavebeensuc-
cessful and provide sample intervention plans targeting specific areas of literacy
achievement. This is an area in which new research is sorely needed, especially re-
search on interventions for English language learners, special education students,
and preschool children, and interventions that target vocabulary development.
In Chapter 9, we review research on professional development and present
our own conception of the literacy coach as designer of a professional develop-
ment system responsive to the needs of adults and children. Such a system com-
bines work outside the classroom to build knowledge of literacy achievement,
literacy development, and literacy instruction with work inside the classroom in
modeling,observation,andfeedback.Weplacethischapterclosetotheendofthis
volume because literacy coaches cannot actually craft coherent professional devel-
opment systems until they have addressed the issues identified in previous chap-
ters. This chapter, though, is the heart of the literacy coach’s work—the part that
is truly new and exciting to us. Unfortunately, compared to the other issues ad-
dressedinthisbook,thisistheareaaboutwhichresearchgivestheleastdirection.
Itwilltakethecombinedeffortsofmany,manyresearchersandmany,manyliter-
acy coaches to produce descriptive and empirical evidence of the effects of differ-
ent professional development systems on the knowledge and skills of teachers and
on the literacy achievement of children.
In our final chapter, Chapter 10, we introduce an issue which we have only
just started to grapple with—the issue of levels of leadership and their interaction
inthesuccessandfailureofschool-basedreforms.Weknowthatthemostsuccess-
ful coaches with whom we’ve worked have established their own leadership, but
we also know that they have done it in decidedly different ways. Some have as-
sumed administrative authority, some are partners with administrators, and some
are simply knowledgeable, flexible instructional role models. Identifying some po-
tentialroutestosuccessfulleadershipisthegoalofthischapter.Oncetheseroutes
are identified conceptually, we know that they could be investigated descriptively
and empirically.
Wearecommittedtolearningmoreaboutextensive,supportive,andeffective
professional development efforts in schools—efforts that improve the work of
teachers and the literacy opportunities of children. We maintain that literacy
coaches can be change agents. However, we need to work harder to understand
therolesthatcoachesmightplay,thechoicesthatcoachesmightmake,andtheef-
fectsofthosechoicesonschools,teachers,andchildren.Weinviteyoutoaddyour
voice to the voices of coaches quoted in this book (all of whom are real but pro-
tectedbypseudonyms)andtoourvoices,bytacklingrealproblemsinrealschools
and by writing about your successes and failures. That is the work that we have
begun here.
Contents
CHAPTER 1. What Is a Literacy Coach? 1
LiteracyCoachasLearner 3
LiteracyCoachasGrantWriter 8
LiteracyCoachasSchool-LevelPlanner 11
LiteracyCoachasCurriculumExpert 14
LiteracyCoachasResearcher 15
LiteracyCoachasTeacher 19
TheLiteracyCoach:ANewRole 20
CHAPTER 2. What Is a Schoolwide Reading Program? 21
SchoolwideResearch 21
Assessment 24
Grouping 31
SelectionofCurriculumResources 33
AllocationofTime 36
CHAPTER 3. Reading Research 45
WhatIsSBRR,andHowCanYouGetSome? 46
PhonemicAwareness 47
Phonics 49
Fluency 53
Vocabulary 55
Comprehension 56
FindingAnswers 59
CHAPTER 4. Reading Assessment 65
TypesofTests 65
AnAssessmentStrategy 67
InterpretingGroupAssessmentScores 68
MultipleAssessmentHatsoftheLiteracyCoach 73
ImprovingGroupAchievementScores 77
AFinalWord 87
ix
