Serving both teachers and students in a hybrid literacy professional role requires thoughtful planning and reflection. In this article, the authors reflect on their work over the course of one school year to determine how to manage time effectively to combine the job descriptions of reading specialist and literacy coach. Strategies are presented…

Classroom-based assessments are important resources for teachers and reading specialists for informing instruction. Their benefits can be enhanced by designing measures that assess more than single skills, that follow formative assessment principles, and that involve multimodal formats and student responses. Because of the diversity in K-6…

An elementary reading specialist examined how drama can help young readers to become actively engaged with comprehending stories. The article explores how two first-grade students involved in a reading support program build representative yet unique understandings through process drama in connection with literacy activities. Through such…

Responsiveness to Intervention (RTI) is widely understood as representing a multilevel framework that integrates assessment and instruction to provide strong early intervention and valid methods of disability identification. There are currently many approaches to RTI, which are creating confusion among educators as they try to conceptualize,…

Classroom teachers and reading specialists have attempted to determine the most effective ways of working with struggling readers. Early intervention and quality instruction are the keys to assisting these struggling readers; however, determining how and where intervention-based instruction should occur is still a concern. Struggling readers need…

The department editors, joined by classroom teachers from Wisconsin and reading specialists from Tennessee, examine across geographical and school boundaries the current practices of teachers who are initiating Response to Intervention (RTI) instruction. They address three goals of RTI that focus on providing systematic instruction of student…

Survey data gathered from a group of reading specialists and classroom teachers participating in a regional IRA conference focused on vocabulary instruction were analyzed for this article. The survey inquired into their classroom and building practices relative to the teaching of vocabulary. The results indicate that the major concern is not what…

Standardized tests are increasingly used to determine students' growth in reading comprehension. In some U.S. school districts, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has led to a focus on multiple-choice questions to better prepare students for these types of tests. Even though such questions can provide some important information, they do not…

Presents ERIC documents that provide information about the competencies needed to become a successful reading specialist and about the manner in which those competencies might be gained. (FL)

Presents results from a survey in the United States that provides some indication of how reading specialists fulfill their roles and how they offer students effective literacy instruction. Notes that the goal was to investigate what reading specialists do so that educators could better understand how they provide services to students and teachers.…

Pressures to help students pass high-stakes tests affect teachers' reading instruction, their responsiveness to students' learning needs, and their professional effectiveness. This article reports on how one reading specialist responded to testing pressures in her urban elementary school. She believed that what was "right" for her…

In this study, classroom teachers were found to value the reading specialists' role as resource person more highly than any of their other roles. (MKM)

Notes that reading specialists function as instructors and leaders. Outlines a study on the role of reading specialists in which principals were iven questionnaires and reading specialists were interviewed. Concludes that state certification offices and universities need to focus on leadership skills in the training of reading specialists. (PM)

The author delivers a powerful argument for development of a team approach to literacy leadership, concluding that "Schools that develop a framework for shared literacy leadership become collegial communities of instructional practice where learning is the shared responsibility of all members. These are schools where teaching and learning are…