L5. Establish a coaching model designed to achieve the goals of the data-informed plan for improving literacy instruction.

In this lesson, your campus-based leadership team will learn about literacy coaches and the elements of coaching models that support evidence-based literacy programs and practices.

Part 1 provides information about the characteristics and duties of literary coaches.

Part 2 describes the activities of an effective literary coach.

Part 3 presents the elements of a successful coaching model.

To get started, download the Implementation Guide for this component and refer to the Action Step for this lesson. Review the Implementation Indicators for each level of implementation and note the Sample Evidence listed at the bottom of the chart.

As you learned in the previous lesson, instructional leadership is key to any campus improvement efforts. When schools work to build capacity among staff and have systems in place to support instructional leadership, teachers receive systematic and consistent support in their professional growth.

Another way to ensure strong instructional leadership is through an effective instructional coaching model. The Texas State Literacy Plan (TSLP) directs schools to adopt and implement a coaching model to support evidence-based literacy practices and aid in the improvement measures outlined in your campus’s data-informed plan for improving literacy instruction. As Joyce and Showers (2002) have noted, “A large and dramatic increase in transfer of training occurs when coaching is added to an initial training experience comprised of theory explanation, demonstrations, and practice” (p. 77).

In other words, professional development should be comprised of job-embedded support for teachers, meaning professional development “situated in schools that is always about the current work of schools” (Croft, Coggshall, Dolan, & Powers, 2010, p. 5). As part of this type of professional support, literacy coaches facilitate teachers in learning evidence-based practices and incorporating them into their regular instruction.

This section will describe the job of the literacy coach, along with recommended guidelines, roles, and qualifications. If your campus has not planned to hire coaches this year, you and your leadership team can use the information in this lesson in your efforts to build capacity at your campus. You may integrate the actions described here into the roles of the instructional leader(s) currently identified at your campus. Also, you may use what you learn in this section as you think about hiring a literacy coach at a future time.

Effective coaches are knowledgeable and experienced lifelong learners who foster and maintain a sense of trust and rapport with teachers. They provide supportive guidance that is confidential and based on professional ethics. From the outset, the campus-based leadership team needs to stress confidentiality between the coach and teacher (Center on Instruction, 2008).

As an instructional leader, the coach provides support, mentoring, and assistance to all classroom teachers in the full and skillful implementation of the literacy program. The coach serves as a resource for identifying appropriate instructional strategies and interventions to address the needs of diverse student groups (i.e., English learners, students with dyslexia, students at risk for literacy difficulties, and students in special education) and to improve all students’ achievement.

The coach observes instruction in reading and writing classrooms and provides immediate and contextualized support based on the observation. Providing targeted, meaningful, and non-threatening feedback, coaches help teachers to improve instructional practice, planning, and assessment.

Coaches possess strong managerial skills that enable them to coordinate a variety of tasks and determine priorities. An effective coach doesn’t have to have all the answers, but he or she should be willing to find the answers in a timely manner.

A key role a literacy coach plays is as the provider of follow-up, job-embedded support after teachers attend formal professional development sessions. The coach acts as a bridge from those sessions to classroom practice by providing on-site support and mentoring following training. The coach can help teachers transfer knowledge and skills to the classroom by modeling and conducting demonstration lessons using evidence-based instructional practices in the teachers’ classrooms. Coaches also assist teachers in integrating new practices into lesson plans and delivering effective instruction. Coaches may also facilitate collaborative planning or data sessions and study groups.

In addition to classroom instruction, the coach assists teachers in developing their knowledge of assessment and data-based decision making. Coaches support teachers in the planning, training, and administration of assessments and guide them in the use of screening, diagnosis, progress monitoring, and outcome assessments. The coach assists grade-level teams in the analysis and use of this assessment data to identify students for additional instruction and identify areas for improvement in instructional practice or program implementation. A regular meeting with the principal to review student assessment data and assess progress toward grade-level goals is an important part of the coach’s role.

Coaches also work collaboratively with teachers to set goals for developing, extending, and improving instructional skills, strategies, and practices (Center on Instruction, 2008). Literacy coaches, however, may not possess all of the knowledge, skills, and qualifications outlined here when they first begin their role as coaches. For example, your team may identify individuals who possess knowledge of effective reading and writing instruction but do not have experience in the facilitation of adult change processes and professional learning. As school leaders recruit coaches or integrate coaching into instructional leadership duties, they must allow those serving as coaches to continually build upon their own knowledge and expertise, both as leaders of literacy instruction and as facilitators of adult professional growth and development.

TO LEARN MORE: To learn more about how literacy coaches and instructional leaders can work with teachers to help improve reading instruction, review “Leading for Reading: An Introductory Guide for K–3 Reading Coaches,” which was developed by the Center on Instruction.

The starting point for the literacy coach is campus data and the data-informed plan for improving literacy instruction. As Part 1 described, a coach’s role may include using data to identify priorities and areas of need. For this reason, literacy coaches are usually members of the campus-based leadership team. The knowledge literacy coaches bring—their qualifications and their experience working with staff on an ongoing basis—will help with many of the decisions you and your team make as you work on the Action Steps in the TSLP.

In addition to using data at the campus planning level, the literacy coach also collects and uses data to support teachers and students in daily instructional settings. Informed by student achievement and observational data, the literacy coach can identify gaps in instructional effectiveness and plan for support in those areas.

An effective coaching model focuses on instruction rather than the evaluation of individual teachers and students. This focus on instruction helps create a collaborative culture in which teachers are supported and encouraged to try new practices and tools as they help students learn to read and write effectively. Interactions between literacy coaches and teachers are marked by collaboration and respect.

To ensure a collaborative climate, coaches can implement a cycle of pre- and post-observation activities. One model of coaching includes a pre-observation meeting and post-observation debriefing and reflection between the coach and the teacher who is observed. During the pre-observation conference, the teacher and coach talk about the lesson focus and may plan together. Often, the work of a coach and teacher will focus on implementing one aspect of a recent professional development session. During a pre-observation conference, teachers receive support with one or more of the following:

• Understanding and using data to make instructional decisions related to literacy instruction
• Selecting text and instructional materials according to curricula and student needs
• Applying intervention strategies for students in Tier II and Tier III of response to intervention (RTI)
• Integrating vocabulary, literacy, and metacognitive reading skills and strategies into content instruction
• Analyzing text patterns and planning instruction that teaches students to use these patterns to comprehend and create sophisticated texts
• Accessing current evidence-based research and applying it in their classrooms
• Clarifying content and language objectives
• Determining how to assess what students have learned
• Adjusting instruction and instructional settings to meet a range of literacy needs for students

Following the observation, the teacher and coach debrief, reflecting on successes and challenges encountered during the observed lesson. Together, they revisit goals and formulate steps that can be taken to achieve professional development goals. In the next part of this lesson, you will learn more about how observation and feedback fit into the broader scope of an effective coaching model.

TO LEARN MORE: The following resources provide additional information about the work and role of coaches in school settings:

The Kansas Coaching Project: Instructional Coaching website at the Center for Research on Learning at the University of Kansas includes free downloadable coaching resources and research articles.

“Improving Instruction through Coaching” is a presentation about general coaching skills, actions, and support mechanisms.

Action Step L5 prompts you to adopt a specific coaching model. All effective coaching models have certain elements in common, as seen in this graphic:

Each of these elements in the coaching cycle is briefly discussed below.

Professional development – Coaches work with teachers to help them implement the evidence-based practices that are the focus of professional learning experiences. These experiences may take the form of traditional large-group face-to-face training or professional development sessions. They may also occur in smaller groups and more informal professional development sessions. Coaches can also assist campus-based leadership teams in identifying needs for professional development based on data analysis.

Modeling – Coaches model evidence-based practices in the classroom so that teachers can experience the translation of theory learned during professional development sessions into practices that apply to the real world of the classroom. Modeling can provide the opportunity for teachers to make direct connections to their own instruction as they witness the successful use of new practices in different subject areas and with their students.

Observation and feedback – Coaches observe teachers as they begin to implement evidence-based practices for themselves. Observations may follow a modeling session or occur after a professional development session to assess the level of need for modeling. Observations can also occur prior to the planning or delivery of new professional development to gain insight into current practices. Whatever the purpose of the observation, teachers need to be informed of the observations and given feedback. Positive feedback on effective practices that are already in place is essential for creating a comfortable climate in which teachers are open to more change-oriented feedback in the future.

“Right-on-time” professional development – After observing teachers as they implement targeted literacy practices, literacy coaches can arrange short, targeted sessions to address any difficulties and misconceptions. These sessions are less formal but can be very effective when provided immediately following an observation—ideally, within a week—and when they provide concrete modeling, examples, and opportunities for teachers to practice and receive real-time feedback on the specific practice.

Regular communication with campus leaders – To be effective, coaches require the support of campus leaders: administrators, literacy specialists, team leaders, and others. Coaches should communicate regularly with campus leaders to share the focus of their efforts and to plan ways to support these efforts. For example, coaches may remind campus administrators to notice when teachers use best practices, such as think-alouds, to model the use of comprehension strategies during class. When administrators or department heads recognize teachers for their attempts to use new practices, their motivation to continue the practices increases.

Coaches, however, do not evaluate teachers as administrators do in formal performance evaluations or appraisals. Nor should coaches provide evaluative information about individual teachers. Administrators sometimes seek evaluative appraisals from coaches about the teachers with whom they work because of the coaches’ extensive work in classrooms and their close work with administrators. However, to be successful, coaches must maintain the trust and confidentiality of the teachers with whom they work. Therefore, coaches’ feedback to administrators should focus primarily on group needs and progress for the purpose of prioritizing resources and planning future support.

Coaching teachers is an ongoing process with repeated visits and coaching conversations. Evaluative observations need to remain distinct from this process and occur only after sufficient time has been allowed for the coaching impact to occur. Personnel with both supervisory and coaching roles will need to establish a special relationship of trust with the teachers they are coaching. Schools with a sufficient number of such personnel can assign coaches to teachers whom they do not supervise. In any case, every effort should be made to separate the coaching and supervisory roles on your campus.

TO LEARN MORE: To learn more about implementing a coaching model, including how to evaluate its effectiveness, see the Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement’s “Issue Brief: Instructional Coaching.”

NEXT STEPS: Depending on your progress on Action Step L5, you may want to consider some of the following actions:

• Establish a coaching model, including roles, duties, and schedules.
• Recruit and/or hire coaches with suggested qualifications.
• Identify existing personnel who can perform coaching actions as part of a current role, such as a department head or instructional leader.
• Establish professional learning goals for coaches and plan for ongoing professional development about coaching.
• Introduce coaches and explain their role to teachers.
• Invite coaches to participate in the campus-based leadership team meetings when appropriate.
• Coordinate professional development activities with literacy coach support.
• Implement a process for identifying teachers who need more or less coaching support.
• Assess the effectiveness of your coaching program.

L5. Establish a coaching model designed to achieve the goals of the data-informed plan for improving literacy instruction.

With your site/campus-based leadership team, review your team’s self-assessed rating for Action Step L5 in the TSLP Implementation Status Ratings document and then respond to the four questions in the assignment.

TSLP Implementation Status Ratings K–5

In completing your assignment with your team, the following resources and information from this lesson’s content may be useful to you:

• Refer to Part 1 for characteristics and duties of literacy coaches.
• Refer to Part 2 for information about the activities of an effective literacy coach.
• Refer to Part 3 for information about coaching models.

Next Steps also contains suggestions that your campus may want to consider when you focus your efforts on this Action Step.

To record your responses, go to the Assignment template for this lesson and follow the instructions.

Center on Instruction. (2008). Leading for reading: An introductory guide for K–3 reading coaches. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation.

Croft, A., Coggshall, J. G., Dolan, M., & Powers, E. (2010). Job-embedded professional development: What it is, who is responsible, and how to get it done well (Issue Brief). Washington, DC: National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality.

Joyce, B. R., & Showers, B. (2002). Student achievement through staff development (3rd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.