Lessons from a Literacy Coach

Answers by Kathie Marshall

What does a literacy coach do in your school system?  Do you work with teachers, with students, or both? Are you school-based or do you serve more than one school? Maybe you could describe a typical day or week in a literacy coach's life in LAUSD.

I have been a full-time literacy coach in Los Angeles Unified School District for six years, but the roles and responsibilities have changed over time.  For the first two years I worked with teachers in all content areas, and the “literacy cadre” consisted of the department chairs for English, history, math, and science.  I was comfortable in this role because I had previously taught all subjects in a self-contained sixth grade.  I enjoyed working with a variety of teachers and supporting the concept of all teachers being literacy teachers.  For the last four years I have worked primarily with English teachers.  This role change came as the District began to roll out a semi-scripted English curriculum, starting with the seventh grade. 

As literacy coach I am a local district employee, but I am assigned to one school.  I work with both teachers and classes depending on needs.  Although my favorite times are those when I am invited into a classroom to do a lesson, most of my time is spent working with individual teachers.  I also took on the role of co-chair of professional development as we entered Program Improvement to facilitate the recommendation that we become more student-centered in our instructional practices. 

Is there such a thing as a typical day or week for a literacy coach?  I’m not sure!  A primary aspect of literacy coaching is its unpredictability. Certainly one of the perks and challenges of this role is the wide variety of tasks to be handled.  During any given week, I may work individually with a number of teachers; discuss curricular issues with administrators; prepare for an upcoming professional development day; unbox and sort materials for periodic assessments; create Excel charts and analyze data from these assessments; create and then demonstrate lessons in classrooms; catch up on pertinent professional reading; write my monthly literacy newsletter; attend a coaching or professional development session; observe classroom instruction; support new teachers, teachers of seventh grade curriculum, or teachers of the eighth grade pilot, or anyone else who asks; answer numerous notes, phone calls, and emails; work with my cadre members on our action research project; or test more than 100 potential students for our reading intervention course.  After school hours you might find me facilitating a small group of teachers on a topic of interest, working with the two eighth grade pilot teachers to implement new curriculum, or attending an Instructional Leadership or School Site Council meeting.  Because of this wide swath of responsibilities, it is difficult to determine “typical”!

Your work is mostly with issues of adolescent literacy. What are the main reasons children are still struggling to read as they enter the middle grades?  How can these pitfalls be avoided?

If only I knew all of the answers to that question!  Several years ago Los Angeles USD opted to put the Open Court reading program in all of its elementary schools, and reading scores rose significantly for quite some time.  Yet it seems no method works for every student.  We still get students who are “learning to read” rather than “reading to learn”, who read several years below grade level.  Some of them are ELL students who haven’t mastered academics in their first or second language.  Many others, I suspect, have a learning interference that has never been diagnosed.  Others have non-academic issues such as family instability or transiency that affect their ability to concentrate and learn consistently.  As a literacy coach, I consider it part of my role to always be on the lookout for more research on how best to support struggling readers and writers.

I really feel for these kids, which is why five years ago I started an incentives program for students in our reading intervention course.  I want them to know the importance of effort, for in many cases, these kids gave up on themselves a long time ago.  When I work one-on-one with some of the most unsuccessful, they can always tell me what school year it was then they gave up on school—and themselves.  I try to coax them back to believe that with effort they can learn.  What concerns me most about all struggling readers is that we haven’t found all the answers for them or how to avoid those reading “pitfalls”.  Struggling readers become apathetic and try to appear invisible in the classroom, or they act out their frustration.  Teachers are frustrated, too, and uncertain about how to instruct these kids.  So teachers may revert to “dumbing down” the curriculum, or reading aloud to the kids, or simply assigning reading and worksheets rather than truly teaching for understanding.  It’s a very complex issue, in my opinion. Struggling readers do whatever they can to avoid reading when what they really need is to read, read, read.   We need to do lots more research on how to engage struggling readers in the reading process, to help them feel initial success again, and develop the belief that they can, in fact, become proficient readers and writers.

You spent nearly three decades as a classroom teacher before you became a literacy coach.  What led you into a coaching role? What perspectives do you have as a result of your work as a coach that might be worth sharing with classroom teachers who are considering similar roles?

When I returned to Los Angeles USD in 1996, I entered middle school for the first time, although I had spent the previous eleven years teaching sixth grade in a private K-6 school.  I chose to teach English and history.  After a couple of years at my middle school, many English teachers came to me and begged me to run for English department chairperson.  So I became a visible voice for literacy on my campus.  When the district started its focus on secondary literacy, district leaders looked first to English department chairs to become literacy coaches.  At the time this was a natural progression for me, so I accepted the role.  I’ve not regretted it.  One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I was so immersed in my role as classroom teacher that I did not look around to see how the field of education was growing.  I have relished all the opportunities offered to learn from noted researchers and educators from across the country, and I enjoy so much passing along my new learning to my colleagues. (Colleagues, by the way, have come to mean the community of educators across the globe who influence each other via the Internet.)  In effect, I see myself as a resource center to support the professional growth of all teachers. 

That being said, literacy coaching is not a simple role.  In fact, the first teacher I met at my school said, “You know you’re the enemy, don’t you?”  Literacy coaches need to have a few key personal tools to feel successful in this role, as some teachers will perceive us as quasi-administrators no matter how deeply we feel ourselves to be teachers.  Content knowledge is important, of course, especially if you take on this role as a relatively young teacher whose knowledge base might be challenged.  Patience, flexibility, love of multi-tasking, and a self-deprecating sense of humor help, too.  I think an ability to problem-solve creatively is also a plus.  In a sense, being a literacy coach is a wide open position that you make your own.  Each district will create its own definition of the literacy coach’s role.  Then the administration of individual schools will add its own specifications depending on needs.  It is the role of the coach to blend those expectations.  In addition, each literacy coach brings his/her own personal perspective, strengths, and skill set to the job.  Perhaps that’s why there’s not even a consistent name for this work, much less a consistent job description.  That flexibility of role, though, helps make the position more meaningful for each teacher who heeds the call.

You've written about a positive experience you had with integrating a special-needs student into a mainstream middle school classroom.  What are the advantages of this practice?  What are the challenges?

My first real experience with mainstreaming special-needs students occurred in 2001 when, without notice, my school began mainstreaming students into my honors and gifted classes.  I had a sixth grade boy with Tourette’s and ADHD who struggled with competing medications; a gifted boy who grappled with severe dysgraphia; a gifted girl who suffered from significant cerebral palsy; four deaf students with an interpreter; and a boy with Asperger’s syndrome who was very impaired socially and behaviorally.  In my opinion, this would become my stellar year as a teacher as I struggled to meet these new challenges.  The issue for me was how to get myself up-to-speed on how best to support these students academically and socially.  This was really a growing year for me because in most cases I had to figure things out on my own.  I wouldn’t trade that struggle for anything, though.  These special-needs students were mainstreamed by law in order to provide them equity of education, and I believe I met that mandate.  What also made me proud, however, was the growth I saw in my non-special-needs students.  Their patience, understanding, and acceptance of these new peers were phenomenal.  For example, my Aspberger’s student was bright but had very little self-control. His parents wanted to try public middle school in order to help their son learn some sociability.  On a daily basis we all worked together for the sake of this child.  Words can’t really express my feelings or his parents’ when I shared with them that during a spelling bee, their son turned to the girl next to him who had successfully spelled a word that had stymied several others to give her a big smile and a high-five.  We all gained from that mainstreaming experience.

In a Teacher Magazine essay, you also wrote about the importance of class discussion as a tool to increase student learning. Why is this so important? What advice do you have for a teacher who wants to increase class discussion? What about the teacher who is met with silence?

Research shows that as much as 85% of students cannot read their textbooks independently.  Research also shows that class discussion is the number one scaffold for ELL students and a primary strategy for all students to deepen understanding—yet discussion plays a very small role in most secondary classrooms.  Although we all know talking and adolescents go hand-in-hand, teachers do the vast majority of talking in their classrooms, as much as 98% of talking comes from the teacher alone. Yet who among us has never learned more about a topic by discussing it with others? Discussion can act as a sort of rehearsal, allowing students to try out their ideas with others, to hear and evaluate others’ perspectives, and to justify opinions or assertions through evidence.  Further, when given opportunities to test out their thinking with a partner or group before answering publicly, those insecure “silent” kids are likely to blossom.  A case in point: This year my cadre’s action research project was focused on improving reading comprehension by greatly increasing the amount of time spent in discussion.  The results were very promising.  Students truly value opportunities to discuss their learning together.  Classroom discussion is an untapped resource for many secondary teachers in large part because they view it as a venue for loss of classroom control.  The answer lies in both teachers and students learning the norms and structures that support effective classroom discussion.

We understand that you've decided to return to full-time classroom teaching after six years as a literacy coach — despite your frustrations with the working conditions for teachers in these days of high-stakes accountability. Why do you want to go back to classroom teaching?

I left the classroom coincidentally with the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act.  So I have never had to deal directly with current classroom conditions and the focus on high-stakes accountability testing.  You’d think I’d keep on running, wouldn’t you?  However, I have never totally accepted leaving the classroom completely.  In fact, for several years I tried to convince the powers that be that it would benefit everyone if they would allow me to teach just one class.  After all, it could act as a demonstration classroom for everything I was presenting in professional development.  The answer was always no.  I have four years left before I retire, and the teeter totter of how to spend those remaining years finally tipped toward a return to the classroom.  I want my passion back.  In addition, perhaps because of a peculiarity of my personality, I am actually looking forward to the challenge of meeting the pressures of high-stakes testing.  I want to integrate all I have learned over the past six years without giving up a creative, rigorous, thinking curriculum that will prepare my sixth graders far beyond the limits of standardized testing.  I want to do some action research of my own to prove to myself—and maybe to others—that a narrowing of the curriculum to academic “sound bites” is not only dead wrong for our kids but also unnecessary. 

In the March 2008 online edition, Educational Leadership featured your story about service learning with students. What is service learning and why do you think it's an important tool to increase learning and engagement among high needs students? How will service learning figure into your return to full-time classroom teaching?

In simple terms, service learning takes place when the instruction in your classroom travels outside the four walls of your classroom to meet a community need.  It can be as simple as teaching students how to write poetry and then having them create holiday cards for patients at a local hospital, or learning about the rules of good nutrition and then sharing them with your family or fellow students.  In all of my decades as an educator I have never found a more powerful tool for student engagement and effort.  The finest work my students ever turned in consisted of something they were about to give away to others.  When I return to full-time teaching, I will still be looking at my assignments with an eye toward service learning because it teaches students that they have the ability to improve the lives of others.  That is very empowering.  Adolescents are very idealistic and struggle with the development of their own identities.  I know of no better tool for tapping that idealism and nurturing the growth of students to see themselves as positive contributors to society.

About Kathie Marshall

Kathie Marshall has been an educator for thirty-two years.  She has taught grades two through eight in both public and private schools and has been involved in middle school literacy for the past twelve years.  For the last six years she has been a middle school literacy coach in Los Angeles Unified School District.  Marshall has published two math workbooks, Plotting Points: Grades 2-4 and Plotting Points: Grades 5-8, and she is currently working on her first book on reading comprehension.  She is also a Fellow of the Teacher Leaders Network.