differentiated literacy coaching

Over the last few years I have delved into the research on literacy coaching and was intrigued to find Mary Catherine Moran's Differentiated Literacy Coaching: Scaffolding for Student and Teacher Success. This book was a dry read. Few examples are found throughout. While resources and handouts are available online, not enough were shared within the text, requiring readers to stop and search for materials that were referenced.

That said, the book has a wealth of information. Moran describes different types of coaching activities: collaborative resource management, literacy content presentations, focused classroom visits, coplanning, study groups, demonstration lessons, peer coaching and coteaching. Coplanning and coteaching are shown as parallels to special ed activities. Two of her key focuses is that coaching works best when teachers are able to self select the activity and that coaches should not be evaluators.

The book is divided into three sections: foundations and research, types of coaching and discussion modules. In the first section the author references Gersten, Vaughn, Deschler and Schiller's (1997) guiding principles for researchers to make use of research in their practice (p. 25):

• Reality principle- is it feasible? Although a program may be highly effective for improving literacy, if it requires an additional hour of 1:1 instruction every day, it might not be the plan to use.
• scope- scale. If it is only applicable to fifth graders with phonemic awareness issues, it probably does not fit the bill for a general education classroom. Conversely, if it is an entire literacy program that would be in conflict with district mandates, it probably is not right either.
• technical aspects- is there enough training, support and feedback for teachers to become skilled with the strategy?
• conceptual aspects- do the teachers understand the significance of the practice? If we increase our focus on fluency or high quality vocabulary instruction, do they see the value?
• linkages- are there easily identifiable connections with other initiatives?
• collegial support networks- Are there supports to sustain the initiative?

Later on she highlights that, "As a coach, our job isn't to tell teachers how or what to do..., but rather to help them reflect on their own practice" (p. 42-3). Keeping this in mind provides a purpose for coaching even veteran teachers. It would have been nice if she had added some reflection protocols or sample dialogs to use as a spring board.

The last part of the text is modules with sample staff development activities that would be useful for any stage of the coaching process implementation. They focus on the concept and logistics of coaching rather than specific content information.

Her appendix does include a plan for evaluating coach performance. Since coaching is different from teaching, using a teacher evaluation model such as Danielson's is not a good measure of performance.