This book explores notions of justice-oriented literacy coaching and offers a way of being in the world with young people, teachers, and communities that centers transformative coaching, teaching, and learning. It is intended to disrupt the traditional and historical positioning of literacy coaches in schools today. Through the lens of social justice and liberatory education, Sailors and Manning begin a dialogue with literacy coaches to help them reconsider their own roles and positions as agents of change in schools. Using vignettes and stories to illustrate potential paths into emancipatory literacy learning environments, the authors present literacy as a socially-situated act of meaning-making. Accessible and inviting, this book provides pragmatic tools for literacy leaders to embody social justice, to grapple with big social concepts, to imagine possibilities, and to stimulate creative thinking with the teachers at their schools and with the students in their classrooms. Intended for literacy coaches in grades K-6 and graduate students in literacy education, this book includes a wealth of resources and examples from real-world contexts, as well as spaces for the reader to interact and engage with the text through journaling and self-reflection.

Now more than ever, the roles and responsibilities of today’s literacy professionals are expanding. Many recent developments require a closer look at the changing careers of reading specialists, coaches, and administrators leading to an emphasis on increased collaboration and coaching, integration of standards, and student improvement initiatives. Both scholarly and practical, Reading Specialists and Literacy Coaches in the Real World provides the support and guidance both literacy and content area teachers need. The learning goals and outcomes in each chapter are aligned with ILA’s Standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals 2017, providing opportunities for group inquiry and new perspectives on professional learning. The authors examine the historical, political, and social forces that shape evidence-based practice and incorporate significant developments in intervention, assessment, and adolescent literacy. Their impact on instruction and the needs of students are studied in conjunction with RtI/MTSS programs, progress monitoring and differentiation, instructional technologies related to twenty-first century literacies, updated information about effective academic language instruction for English learners, and a moral imperative for fostering equity, social justice, and global perspectives. The Fourth Edition also provides Resource Materials to support the text, giving it a great deal of flexibility to explore projects for portfolios and self-assessment. In the real world, as learners among learners, literacy professionals use their experiences and voices for advocacy to help prepare students for success in their lives and careers.

Supporting and challenging cooperating teachers to grow in their mentoring and coaching practices with preservice teachers and also in their own work as classroom teachers, this practical guide presents and illustrates the Coaching with CARE model—a framework for reflection and action that helps cultivate a perspective on teaching that puts students at the center of teacher preparation and places value on apprenticeship and participation in learning. The CARE model takes a turn away from traditional evaluation-based "training" approaches, offering a way for cooperating teachers, and facilitators and university teacher educators who work with them, to come together to shape innovative coaching and mentoring experiences for preservice teachers. Mentoring Preservice Teachers Through Practice, building on the authors’ own work with cooperating teachers, is based on the most recent research on learning to teach and supporting preservice teachers and grounded in the realities of teacher education today. Each chapter includes questions for discussion and suggested readings that can be used to explore the focus of the chapter more deeply as well as relevant research reports published by the authors.

A revolutionary framework for teacher learning centered on justice-focused coaching that encourages culturally responsive practice and disrupts systems of oppression. In Coaching in Communities, researcher Melissa Mosley Wetzel and her coauthors distill the lessons of an eight-year study into a transformative educator training model, Coaching with CARE (critical and content-focused, appreciative, reflective, and experiential). They demonstrate how effective, contextual teacher training can be a cornerstone of educational justice, which occurs when all learners are supported to be successful in school and when schools expand notions of success to include diverse ways of life and learning. The authors show how this new framework, which draws from behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, and critical models of coaching, can be used in professional and informal learning contexts, and in dialogue with families and communities, to upend the status quo, break down the expert-novice distinction, and cultivate just forms of practice. As they note, the work of justice is collaborative, sustained engagement in resistance to marginalization, racism, and other inequities. Coaching in Communities presents a set of tools, including shared inquiry and coaching cycles of observation, reflection, and debriefing, and demonstrates how they work in real-life settings. With these tools, teacher education programs as well as districts, schools, and other organizations can train for change, which is one essential step in school transformation.

Literacy education can take place in many locations and periods across the lifespan. Literacy educators require flexibility and a deep toolbox to meet their students’ diverse needs, regardless of whether they work in traditional school and college settings or in other environments with varied populations. Teaching Literacy in Diverse Contexts shows how practical experiences can be used in creative ways to support educator development for teaching literacy in a global context. Mentorship between a developing literacy educator and an experienced teacher educator is central to the book, and to the practical experiences in training or professional development that it focuses on. Chapters share the creative solutions discovered during mentorship that supported developing literacy educators to teach with authenticity in a number of contexts, including the adult learning sector, a rural community in Africa and alongside parents of very sick children. The authors demonstrate how this can be done in a sensitive and culturally relevant manner by parents, volunteers and teachers with varying degrees of experience in both formal and informal spaces. Together, the chapters build a crucial resource for preparing a broad range of literacy educators to teach literacy in many contexts where policy on how best to teach reading and writing to diverse student bodies ebbs and flows.

A practical framework to avoid burnout and keep great teachers teaching Onward tackles the problem of educator stress, and provides a practical framework for taking the burnout out of teaching. Stress is part of the job, but when 70 percent of teachers quit within their first five years because the stress is making them physically and mentally ill, things have gone too far. Unsurprisingly, these effects are highest in difficult-to-fill positions such as math, science, and foreign languages, and in urban areas and secondary classrooms—places where we need our teachers to be especially motivated and engaged. This book offers a path to resiliency to help teachers weather the storms and bounce back—and work toward banishing the rain for good. This actionable framework gives you concrete steps toward rediscovering yourself, your energy, and your passion for teaching. You’ll learn how a simple shift in mindset can affect your outlook, and how taking care of yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally is one of the most important things you can do. The companion workbook helps you put the framework into action, streamlining your way toward renewal and strength. Cultivate resilience with a four-part framework based on 12 key habits Uncover your true self, understand emotions, and use your energy where it counts Adopt a mindful, story-telling approach to communication and community building Keep learning, playing, and creating to create an environment of collective celebration By cultivating resilience in schools, we help ensure that we are working in, teaching in, and leading organizations where every child thrives, and where the potential of every child is recognized and nurtured. Onward provides a step-by-step plan for reigniting that spark.

Accessible and inviting, this book showcases how teachers and literacy coaches can use research as a tool to teach literacy effectively and with intention. Sailors and Hoffman invite literacy specialists and practicing and preservice teachers into a conversation about how they can use research as means for professional learning, mentorship, and empowerment. Chapters feature a wealth of tools, examples, and strategies that make key concepts in literacy research refreshing and practical. This book invites the reader to pause and reflect on the practical knowledge through special features in the book and available online as eResources, including: "Points to Consider" boxes to encourage reflection and deeper thinking "Pause and Reflect" boxes to give the reader space to apply concepts to their own work as practice-based researchers eResources with recommended readings and "Meet the Teacher" exemplars of teachers’ stories to provoke further reflection, available on the book’s webpage: www.routledge.com/9780367177607 Perfect for literacy specialists, coaches and consultants in literacy, ELA/literacy teachers, as well as preservice teachers, this book is a comprehensive and engaging guide to using research as a means to transform classrooms.