Three Core Tools for Literacy Leaders
Newsletter
Shortly after my book Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H. came out in 2022, a colleague emailed me to let me know she appreciated this resource.
“I hope you also know,” she added, “that leaders are going to need more than just this book to get into classrooms and support teaching and learning.”
It was a humbling yet accurate assessment. It’s one thing to read a book and consider the ideas presented. It’s another thing to put those ideas into action.
That’s why I have been working on a “playbook”, a guide that describes in detail the specific actions principals, coaches, and other literacy leaders can take to engage in this work. It builds off of the ideas presented in my book, offering an even clearer pathway to achieving schoolwide success, particularly in literacy.
As I’ve thought about how to best structure this playbook, an initial question came up:
What are the core tools literacy leaders need to engage in this work?
Reflecting on my last sixteen years as a principal, as well as thinking about the conversations I have had with leaders this year as a systems coach, I have arrived at three core tools that I believe are essential for becoming a literacy leader:
Instructional Walks
An Instructional Framework
The Weekly Staff Newsletter
The rest of this newsletter briefly describes each tool, why it’s necessary, and how any literacy leader can use it next week.
#1 - Instructional Walks
If I were pressed to pick just one tool for an instructional leader’s practice, instructional walks would be it.
Instructional walks originated from Regie Routman’s work in facilitating literacy residencies in schools across the U.S. and Canada. In Read, Write, Lead: Breakthrough Strategies for Schoolwide Literacy Success, Regie defines instructional walks as:
“an intentional, informal visit (not an evaluation) by the principal to a teacher’s classroom to notice, record, and affirm strengths, build trust, offer possible suggestions, or coach - all for the purpose of increasing student literacy and learning across the curriculum.” (p. 306)
I can confirm the power in getting into classrooms daily to notice, name, celebrate, and talk about instruction with teachers. The learning is as much for the leader as it is for the teacher. The conversations that occur from these informal yet powerful visits are the bedrock of a professional learning initiative.
#2 - An Instructional Framework
Coaching conversations with teachers, facilitated through instructional walks, are only as strong as the professional learning a school is currently engaged in at the time.
While I won’t recommend a specific approach to professional development, I am adamant that any continuous improvement initiative includes an instructional framework.
In their Educational Leadership article “When Change Has Legs”, David Perkins and James Reese define instructional frameworks as “a vision for more effective teaching and learning.” They go beyond “best practices”, and attempt to define high-quality instruction in no uncertain terms. At the same time, an effective instructional framework is not rigid. As Perkins and Reese note, teachers can “adapt to their personal styles and circumstances” to it.
In the two schools in which I was the head principal, we used Regie Routman’s ten descriptions of principled practices as our framework for instruction. It gave teachers and me a common language for talking about strong instruction.
Clarity is king. We took these definitions to a deeper understanding by creating videos of each of these practices in action in our clasrooms. We wanted to remove any doubt or confusion about what we meant by “authenticity” or “self-directed learners”, for example.
#3 - The Weekly Staff Newsletter
I came to appreciate this third tool more and more the longer I used it.
Every Friday as a principal, I sent out a digital communication to staff that documented three things:
What I noticed and appreciated during my instructional walks that week
General updates
A recommended professional article, book, podcast or video
This weekly resource served multiple purposes:
The initial sharing of what I observed and celebrated in classrooms reinforced the practices described in our instructional framework.
The general updates helped us reduce the number of staff meetings we needed to hold. They also gave us more time to utilize staff meetings as opportunities for professional learning.
The recommended resources both helped faculty stay current with the educational literature and reinforced the importance of professional reading and learning.
Check out the guide linked below for more on this third tool.
My thinking around literacy and leadership in schools continues to evolve. But I would not be surprised if, twenty years from now, I would still land on these three tools as the core resources necessary for achieving schoolwide literacy success.