Education headlines rarely permeate the cultural discourse, though there are exceptions. Over the last four years, one seismic exception has been the surge of interest in the Science of Reading. I’d estimate that most average-to-well-educated Americans could articulate at least its central claim – that direct phonics instruction is key

In recent blogs, we’ve spotlighted the importance of intentional knowledge building, and, specifically, purposeful lesson launching and explicit vocabulary instruction. We know there is need: recent nationwide NAEP reading results shouldn’t be overlooked – and while there has been significant progress to date in the Science of Reading movement, it

I recently enjoyed sitting in a 3rd-grade literacy class midway through E.B. White’s classic, Charlotte’s Web. As the teacher facilitated a beautiful shared reading of a new chapter, students encountered the following exchange between Charlotte and a fellow animal: The teacher smartly paused, realizing the difficulty of the section, and

Over the past few weeks, we’ve written a series of posts on enhancing instructional leadership practice, including maximizing observation time at the beginning of the year and once classroom foundations have been established.  However, determining an impactful action step is only the first step in instructional coaching – and, on

In our last post on developing leaders as instructional coaches, we dove into the foundations of classroom observation, focusing on effective beginning-of-year practices. Once classroom foundations are set for the teachers we coach, it’s time to shift our observation eye to ensuring student learning is happening.  In today’s post, we’ll outline a