Instructional change is facilitated through instructional coaching in Reading Ways partner schools. The "how" part starts when literacy leaders enroll in the Reading Ways Literacy Leadership course and continues with personalized support.
The facets of critical thinking and literacy that Reading Ways emphasizes are sophisticated and vary across disciplinary domains. This means that our coaching and teaching resources need to be expertly adapted to the needs of each disciplinary team. Literacy coaches implementing a phonological awareness program are able to give precise prescriptions to the teachers they support and be confident that the prescribed strategies will work for the majority of students. However, coaching in secondary content-area classrooms does not usually work this way. Coaches can undoubtedly bring expertise and instructional ideas to the table, but these approaches will need to be adapted to fit the needs of particular teams. For instance, strategies to help students integrate views across multiple texts will need to vary depending on if students are reading poems or examining results from an experimental trial. Coaching in secondary schools is challenging work, in part because teaching approaches need to be adapted to meet the diverse needs of content-area teams. By enrolling in our Reading Ways Literacy Leadership course, we can help your team rise to the challenge and receive ongoing coaching support.
