From the start, include the principals and provide them with the tools they need to help improve reading achievement. Let’s make it more possible for them to use their leadership skills to work collaboratively and effectively with their school’s reading coaches.
We need to ensure that classrooms are running well, instruction is strong across classrooms, and grade levels are building upon each other’s work. To provide the leadership that increases student learning, we as school leaders have to be present where the learning happens — in our classrooms during daily instruction.
Learn the common terminology of reading research and how to gauge if a strategy or intervention can be implemented in your classroom with fidelity and a measurable effect on your students’ learning.
While research does not show that the 4-day week results in lower reading scores, that may indicate that we’re not careful enough in our use of instructional time — providing a substantial amount of the kinds of word, fluency, comprehension, and writing instruction that results in learning.
I thought that reading researchers had the answers that teachers needed. Now I see that teachers have the questions and knowledge of the real-world that reading researchers need to be of service to society.
Improving literacy rates on a large scale will require solving the problems that make working in schools like mine so challenging. We can’t get instruction right within our classrooms without addressing some of the problems outside of them.
