👩🏾🏫Takeaways: The Literacy Coaching Handbook
About the Authors
Being sisters and having always worked together, the Sissons both hold doctorates in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies as well as being certified reading consultants. They have worked abroad in developing reading programs for students in international settings, have consulted on federal research grants, and have presented at national and international conferences. They currently operate our own consulting service focusing on professional development and school improvement. The Sissons also teach undergraduate and graduate courses at Central Connecticut State University and the University of Saint Joseph in the fields of educational research, teacher education, reading and language arts, curriculum and instruction, and special education programming as well as sitting on the board of the Connecticut Association for Reading Research (CARR) as CARR’s co-principal investigators on a three-year research study on higher educational reform initiatives.
Table of Contents
⭐ The Book in 3 Sentences
🎨 Impressions
🤔 Who Should Read It?
💡 How the Book Changed Me
✍🏾 My Top 3 Quotes
📘 Summary + Notes
⭐ The Book in 3 Sentences
High levels of student achievement are obtained in tandem with intentional, data-informed coaching moves as well as visionary alignment with the building principal.
The successful instructional coach is equal parts change agent, relationship builder, data analyst, curriculum expert, resource manager, instructional specialist, and professional developer.
Reflection for growth and adaptability to change are key traits of instructional coaches that are enriched through the relationships and readings they invest in throughout the course of their time in the role.
🎨 Impressions
This resource further enriched my interpretation of what quality instructional coaching consists of by amplifying the exemplary work of coaches I wish to emulate and confirming the invalidity of leadership practices I wish to avoid altogether. As highlighted by Sisson and Sisson, the role of an instructional coach is one that can become laden with an overwhelming number of administrative duties and obligations which fail to afford the holder of this role with time to actually coach classroom educators. Irrespective of this, it is imperative that coaches take ownership of their initiatives, influences, and the invitation to lead in order to serve the instructional community of their campuses. Simply put, we must find a way to do the work with excellence anyway. This book aims and succeeds at providing readers with an extensive toolkit for accomplishing that feat.
🤔 Who Should Read It?
Backed by research studies across the varying models of quality instructional coaching, this book is similar to that of a graduate course textbook with sections and chapters dedicated to the significances and components of instructional coaching. Due to this type of delivery, it pairs well for whole book and selected passage(s) reading. Individuals that will benefit from reading this selection include, but are not limited to:
Current classroom educators aspiring to or considering a transition from the role of teacher to instructional coach.
Novice instructional coaches in need of a supplement to district and campus leadership training initiatives.
Campus and/or district level administrators hoping to streamline the instructional coach preparation process via book study.
Principals of campuses receiving their first instructional coach unit.
💡 How the Book Changed Me
How my life / behaviors / thoughts / ideas have changed as a result of reading the book
Prior to reading this book, I had the misconception that instructional coaches were solely administrative roles. Although the classification of their roles vary from district to district and state to state, instructional coaches are; by definition, some of the most brilliant minds to work within a campus community. I arrived to this conclusion not only due to the expectation that these individuals are content and pedagogical experts, but also how they are able to skillfully draw out of other educators their maximum potential and see to it that they do the same for students. The stakes, at this level, are far greater than I even fully understood. For not only is an instructional coach responsible for developing achievement within students at the campus level, but they are also responsible for helping teachers reach similar levels of self-efficacy and professional excellence.
Due to the nature of my previous work environments, I am very much used to “siloing” through my work. Success in this role will require me to stretch aspects of my personality that have been dormant for a long time; particularly, in the relationship building department.
The greatest leaders in any capacity not only develop systems, but enrich them through exposure to best practices. Now more than ever, I will have to recalibrate myself to chasing growth opportunities rather than becoming comfortable in “what works.” These are lessons that I have watched unfold as well as mistakes I’ve made in my own career as a teacher. The true test of what I’ve learned over the past three years will be assessed within this new role.
✍🏾 My Top 3 Quotes
Andy Stanley: “You will never maximize your potential in any area without coaching. It is impossible. You may be good. You may even be better than everyone else. But without outside input you will never be as good as you could be”
“Looking at data should not be a special occasion or be scheduled only after high-stakes tests have been released. It should be a naturally occurring part of ongoing school improvement efforts with student data being regularly analyzed at three distinct levels - at the individual classroom, horizontally among different classrooms in the same grade level, and vertically across multiple grades. At each of these levels, the literacy coach must step outside of the instructional environment and ask “why” are we getting these results (49).
Robert Hargrove: “The higher you raise the bar of excellence, the more you need coaching.”
