This article describes a literacy methods course designed to introduce reading specialist candidates to research-based practices for comprehension instruction. Specifically, this article focuses on a sequence of assignments and class sessions within that course that introduced theoretical perspectives about comprehension processes and how those…

Literacy coaches need support developing their professional capacities for coaching (Kern et al., 2018). This study explored the ways novice literacy coaches developed literacy coaching discourses during coursework in two reading specialist master's degree programs. Through qualitative and discourse analysis of transcribed coaching videos and…

Ironically, at a time when coaching seems to have come into its own as a way to improve teacher practice, school districts across the United States are experiencing funding cuts and eliminating coaching positions. The threats that budget woes pose to established school coaching programs led the authors to ask themselves what practices schools and…

The time-honored children's story "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" is a prime example of someone having the kind of day people would like to avoid. Having a bad day can happen to anyone--even a dedicated literacy coach. An important component of coaching is building collaborative working relationships between the coach…

This was a qualitative case study that compared data across six district-level literacy coaches' epistemological and ontological beliefs about how to teach reading. All six coaches were working as a cohort of literacy coaches on the development and implementation of a secondary reading intervention program for seventh-grade struggling readers.…

The present study examined how elementary reading coaches interpreted their roles, how they allotted their time among various tasks, and their perceptions regarding the influence of their roles related to teacher knowledge and instructional practice in elementary schools receiving Reading First funding in one state Employing both quantitative and…

In this article, Vicki Jacobs argues that as the nation strives to improve the literacy achievement of U.S. adolescents, educators must reframe the current "crisis" as a critical point on a continuum of historical efforts to address the particular challenges of postprimary-grade reading. Specifically, Jacobs examines the definition of adolescent…

Describes the reading specialist's role in the Collaborative Literacy Intervention Project (CLIP) of the Tempe (Arizona) School District. (SR)