Literacy Coaching Reflection

In the beginning of this chapter, Bean states that the number of literacy coaches has fallen off in the past few years, but that coaching is one of the “key approaches to improving teacher practice and ultimately, student learning” (138). I was grateful to the author for including this information. Currently, I am quite frustrated with the reduction in staffing of educators. I certainly see the benefits of having a literacy coach who has the knowledge needed, time to work with other teachers, collaborative relationships, and supports the learning focuses of students (139).
Furthermore, I was intrigued by the notion that literacy coaching and a literacy coach were two different skills. I am also again amazed that a reading specialist role is so dependent on the culture and expectations of school buildings and individual principals. Because of my limited exposure to reading specialists at the middle school level, I had always expected to be a person who was working with small groups of students or individual students for a good part of the day if working
I found these helpful, but I found the “Comparison of Coaching at the Elementary Level with the Secondary Level” (153-4) more beneficial. Since I hope to use my education at the middle school level, I was curious about what differences exist with regard to grade level of the building. From my own experience, I have found that teachers at the elementary level are more focused on foundational literacy skills, have a deep understand literacy, and seem to have a more flexible schedule than educators at the secondary level. I am aware that secondary educators, teachers with more subject content knowledge than pedagogical training, do tend to be limited by a rigid schedule, do not have the knowledge of or are unable to see the importance of literacy at the level he or she