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.
I used to think that it didn’t matter how I learned to read, the fact that I’d become literate was the most important thing. But I came to realize that the way I was taught (or rather, not taught) to read words was affecting me even as an adult.
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.
To have productive text-based discussions, we have to pull apart the texts ourselves — hunting for barriers to comprehension at the word, sentence, paragraph, and passage level.
