Teacher Leaders As Reading Coaches: K-12 Educator
Training Teacher Leaders as Reading Coaches
Imagine this school scenario: A high poverty, urban district (more than 80% of students receive free or reduced lunch), with 18% ELL learners (where the state average is 6%) and over 100 different languages and dialects spoken. Teaching reading is a real challenge, especially in grades K-1 (Dean, Dyal, Wright, Carpenter & Austin, 2012). The district’s answer is to identify excellent teachers and assign them to a reading and writing coach position to mentor their peers.
Enter Sue, a former first grade teacher, newly assigned to a coaching position for grades K-1. Sue wanted to be a coach, but felt she lacked the training to do so. Since her district did not offer coaching training to the new …show more content…
These responsibilities require reading coaches to provide professional development, scaffold appropriate reading strategies with ongoing teacher support, assist teachers with goal setting, and interact with students, parents and community members (International Reading Association, 2004). Therefore, the training was developed to provide support for the role as outlined by the IRA. Primarily, it was founded in the notion that adult learning principles must be considered when engaging in the coaching process. This is especially true when the coach is a K-12 educator; their first instinct might be to use the same pedagogy with adults (teachers, parents and community members) that they employ with their own students. In this case, an elementary teacher may be highly effective at teaching young students, but may not necessarily be aware of how to teach adults. The professional development therefore focused on adult learning principles, adult learning style preferences and mentoring for skill …show more content…
Specifically, adults come to a learning situation with a problem or issue they need to overcome; therefore, they are motivated to learn. They want relevance and immediate usefulness for what they are learning. They also bring prior experience to the learning situation that they would like to have acknowledged. These principles serve as the foundation for teaching or coaching adult learners.
Adult Learning Style Preferences
In addition to delving into these principles and engaging in activities that would help a reading coach integrate them into their practice, it was important to address the issue of adult learning style preferences. Adults, like K-12 students, learn best when their preferred sensory learning styles are met (Dunn, 1984). The facilitator provided activities for the exploration of effective strategies to meet the needs of adults who learn best when material is provided through auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic modes. The next step was to delve into a model of skill acquisition and mentoring techniques.
Mentoring for Skill
Imagine this school scenario: A high poverty, urban district (more than 80% of students receive free or reduced lunch), with 18% ELL learners (where the state average is 6%) and over 100 different languages and dialects spoken. Teaching reading is a real challenge, especially in grades K-1 (Dean, Dyal, Wright, Carpenter & Austin, 2012). The district’s answer is to identify excellent teachers and assign them to a reading and writing coach position to mentor their peers.
Enter Sue, a former first grade teacher, newly assigned to a coaching position for grades K-1. Sue wanted to be a coach, but felt she lacked the training to do so. Since her district did not offer coaching training to the new …show more content…
These responsibilities require reading coaches to provide professional development, scaffold appropriate reading strategies with ongoing teacher support, assist teachers with goal setting, and interact with students, parents and community members (International Reading Association, 2004). Therefore, the training was developed to provide support for the role as outlined by the IRA. Primarily, it was founded in the notion that adult learning principles must be considered when engaging in the coaching process. This is especially true when the coach is a K-12 educator; their first instinct might be to use the same pedagogy with adults (teachers, parents and community members) that they employ with their own students. In this case, an elementary teacher may be highly effective at teaching young students, but may not necessarily be aware of how to teach adults. The professional development therefore focused on adult learning principles, adult learning style preferences and mentoring for skill …show more content…
Specifically, adults come to a learning situation with a problem or issue they need to overcome; therefore, they are motivated to learn. They want relevance and immediate usefulness for what they are learning. They also bring prior experience to the learning situation that they would like to have acknowledged. These principles serve as the foundation for teaching or coaching adult learners.
Adult Learning Style Preferences
In addition to delving into these principles and engaging in activities that would help a reading coach integrate them into their practice, it was important to address the issue of adult learning style preferences. Adults, like K-12 students, learn best when their preferred sensory learning styles are met (Dunn, 1984). The facilitator provided activities for the exploration of effective strategies to meet the needs of adults who learn best when material is provided through auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic modes. The next step was to delve into a model of skill acquisition and mentoring techniques.
Mentoring for Skill