NORTHWEST

EDUCATION

FALL 2006 / VOLUME 12. NUMBER 1.

TEAMING UP WITH

LITERACY 

COACHES

Taking a page from Reading First 6

Getting a head start on literacy 22

Winning over secondary teachers 30
C2 nwrel.org/nwedu

ON THE COVER

From preschool to high school, literacy coaches are influencing

classroom practice. In this issue, we hear from coaches of teachers

and coaches of coaches like Jeffrey Wilhelm, Alyson Miller, and

Jody Hagen-Smith.

Photos by Mount Burns and Jim Lavrakas
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 1

Web exclusives at nwrel.org/nwedu/

6

30

36

12

FEATURES

6 Finding Gold at the End of the Rainbow

Based on the success of Reading First, Anchorage expands literacy coaching to

all primary schools.

Cereal and Stories: A Breakfast Reading Club Fills Minds and Tummies

Committed volunteers host a before-school story hour to promote reading.

12 Putting It All Together

A well-coordinated reading program with coaching support helps ELL

students succeed in one rural Washington elementary.

16 What We Know—and Don’t Know—About Coaching

Esteemed Stanford University Professor Michael Kamil talks about the need

to recruit and train qualified coaches.

18 Side by Side

Idaho’s Reading First coaches receive targeted advice from the pros.

22 Serious Play

An innovative curriculum brings coaches and play-based literacy lessons to

Head Start programs.

26 Acting Out

Drama-rich literacy strategies take center stage in one school district’s

secondary classrooms.

Redefining Literacy for the Adolescent Learner: Q&A With Jeffrey Wilhelm

A Boise State professor and nationally known author weighs in on the gender

gap in literacy.

30 Getting on the Same Page

Literacy lessons aren’t just for English teachers in a large suburban Oregon

high school.

36 Lessons for a Lifetime

In an idyllic Montana setting, a popular instructional model uses

metacognitive strategies to improve reading comprehension and empower

students.

NORTHWEST

EDUCATION

CONTENTS / FALL 2006 TEAMING UP WITH LITERACY COACHES VOL. 12 / NO. 1
2 nwrel.org/nwedu/

DEPARTMENTS

3 Forum

4 Editor’s Note

41 Voices

Revisiting Your Literacy Coaching Program

43 Research Brief

Connecting Coaching and Improved Literacy

46 Region at a Glance

The Different Meanings of Proficiency

47 End Note

Chalk It Up for Literacy

48 NWREL News

Hearings Shed Light on Regional Needs

Improvement Process Targets Reading Proficiency

Popular Research Synthesis Reissued 

Conference Call

Flashback

What’s New on the Web

NWREL Services

What the Research Says (or Doesn’t Say)

Reviewing research on literacy development in

language-minority students

On the Web

Northwest Education is available online in both 

PDF and HTML versions at www.nwrel.org/nwedu/.

Look for Web exclusives, marked with .

Northwest Education is published three times a year by the

Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Past and current

issues of the magazine are available at www.nwrel.org/nwedu/.

ISSN 1546-5020

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Carol F. Thomas

Deputy Executive Officer

Dr. Robert E. Blum

Administrative Director, Development and Communications

Dave Wilson

Editor

Rhonda Barton

Assistant Editor

Bracken Reed

NWREL News Writers/Photographers

Kate Fitzgibbon, Michael Heavener

Technical Editor

Eugenia Cooper Potter

Design

Denise Crabtree

Data Analyst

Richard Greenough

Library Support

Linda Fitch

Webmaster

Vicki Jean Beauchamp

Circulation

Lorelei Aldridge

Statement of Purpose

Northwest Education aims to promote a regional dialogue and to elevate teaching and learning by giving readers the best information,

ideas, and personal stories from practitioners, researchers, and other

experts. 

Copyright © 2006, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. 

Articles and information in this publication may be reproduced and

distributed without permission for nonprofit educational and professional development purposes. Please acknowledge NWREL as

the source.

NORTHWEST

EDUCATION 
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 3

Inspiring Educators

This article (“To Realize the Dream” in

fall 2002) was well-written and very

inspirational. I am in my office at 10

p.m. on this very hot night but I am

spurred on to read your magazine

because the articles are so motivational.

“To Realize the Dream” reinforced

the possibilities that await our minority

students if we view our role as a mission as opposed to just a job. This article encourages me in my struggle, for it

provides ways to raise the “bar” that are

practical and clear-cut.

As I am beginning my education

doctorate, this article proves significant

to my research. Job well-done!

Adrienne Spencer

Principal, Middle School 2

Brooklyn, NY

Thank you for making me feel good

about myself!

Denise J. Weeks did an outstanding

job with this story (“Under the Same

Sun,” winter 2001).

People are the builders, makers, and

shapers of this world. Knowledge is the

basic foundation, but without understanding it is nothing.

Dorothy M. Epchook

Teacher Aide, Kwethluk School

Kwethluk, Alaska

Spanish Language Learning Online 

Just an addition to the information in

the article “Portal to Opportunity”

(spring 2006): New York University

has an agreement similar to Washington’s with INEA and the Mexican

Ministry of Public Education and is

another state that is operating a

CONEVyT Web portal for its students.

NYU is in the process of aligning the

materials to the NYS Standards and is

operating about 15 Plazas Comunitarias in the New York City area. 

See http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/metro

center/Plazas.html for more information.

Marguerite Lukes

Resource Specialist/Research Scientist

New York, NY

We want to hear from you! Send your

letters to the editor, comments on current and past issues, article ideas, and tips

on places where good things are happening to nwedufeedback@nwrel.org.

Letters may be edited for length or clarity.

FORUM

NWREL BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Dr. Richard McCullough (Chair)

Adjunct Professor, Western Washington University

Jerry Colonna (Vice Chair)

Superintendent, Beaverton School District (OR)

Dr. John Davis (Secretary-Treasurer)

Superintendent, Bering Strait School District (AK)

Dr. Terry Bergeson

Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction

Susan Castillo

Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction

Dr. Marilyn Howard

Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction

Linda McCulloch

Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction 

Roger Sampson

Alaska Commissioner of Education & Early Development

Doreen Brown (Parent Representative)

Supervisor, Indian Education, Anchorage School District (AK)

Karanja Crews

Teacher, Beaverton School District (OR)

Rubén Degollado 

Assistant Principal, Hillsboro School District (OR)

Rudy Edwards

School Board Member

Snoqualmie Valley School District (WA)

Dr. Joanne Erickson

Assistant Professor, Montana State University–Bozeman

Jeff Estes

Manager, Office of Science Education Programs, 

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (WA)

Jeri Harris

Teacher, Seattle School District (WA)

Dr. Larry Harris

Dean, Idaho State University

Dennis Haverlandt 

Teacher, Whitefish School District (MT)

Jerry Keane 

Superintendent, Post Falls School District (ID)

Nancy Larsen

Teacher, Coeur d’Alene School District (ID)

Richard Mauer

Chair, Alaska State Board of Education & Early Development

Dr. Bill McDiarmid

Professor, University of Washington

Dr. Geoffrey Mills

Dean, Southern Oregon University 

Ted Popplewell

Director, Elementary Education, Twin Falls (ID) 

Kay Purcell

Principal, St. Rose Parish School, Longview (WA)

Barbara Riley

Community/Business Representative, Missoula (MT)

Dr. Perla Rodriguez (Parent Representative)

Principal, Cornelius School District (OR)

Doug Sullivan

Superintendent, Sidney Public Schools (MT)

Carol VanDerWege

Teacher, Kenai Peninsula Borough School District (AK)

Joan Parker Webster

Associate Professor, University of Alaska Fairbanks
4 nwrel.org/nwedu/

“The dictionary is the only place that

success comes before work. Hard

work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you’re willing to pay the price.”

—Vince Lombardi, former coach of

the Green Bay Packers and Washington

Redskins

It used to be that the word “coach” conjured images of a

beefy guy in a sweat suit with a whistle around his neck. Or,

in the case of my elementary school, a well-tanned former

tennis pro in sparkling white shorts with a permanent swath

of zinc oxide on his nose. 

Today, the coach is just as apt to be a teacher who spends

her time strengthening fellow teachers’ practice rather than

someone who builds prowess on the football field or basketball court. “At its best, coaching helps educators make

informed decisions about instruction and school organization

that will lead teachers to teach in ways that help students gain

a deeper knowledge of subject matter so that they can bring

that knowledge to bear on problems and questions that matter,” write Barbara Neufeld and Dana Roper of Education

Matters in a 2003 report (Coaching: A Strategy for Developing

Instructional Capacity—Promises and Practicalities). 

Literacy coaches—also called reading coaches—are perhaps the most common type of coaches off the athletic field.

The training and placement of literacy coaches in elementary

schools figures prominently in the federal Reading First initiative. According to a recent study by the Center for Education Policy, 98 percent of the 5,666 Reading First schools in

the country report that they’ve hired coaches. Increasingly,

non–Reading First and secondary schools are also flocking to

the model.

While it’s difficult to estimate the number of literacy

coaches in the United States, the ranks are swelling in some of

the country’s largest school districts including Boston, New

York City, Chicago, and San Diego. Florida alone has deployed

2,000 coaches this year and is lobbying the legislature for funding to double that number next school year. The goal is to place

one coach in each of the state’s 4,000 K–12 schools.

You need only look to national statistics on reading

achievement to understand why the idea of coaches is gaining traction:

• One in four adolescents can’t read well enough to understand information text, according to a 2003 study by Stanford University Professor Michael Kamil.

• The national testing company ACT reported that about

half of high school graduates in 2005 lacked the reading

skills needed to succeed in college.

• National longitudinal studies show that three-quarters of

students who exit third grade as struggling readers continue to read poorly in high school.

While there’s only limited evidence that coaches can help

turn around those numbers, there’s substantial research on

the benefits of embedded professional development. And, the

literacy coach is logically seen as the means to develop, coordinate, and support targeted professional development. “It’s

well-documented that ongoing, school-based professional

development is what makes the difference,” says Barbara

Elcie, deputy director of JustRead Florida. “It’s powerful having coaches because [under our model] 100 percent of their

time is devoted to serving the teacher.” 

The International Reading Association and National

Council of Teachers of English have teamed up to underwrite

a national clearinghouse to increase research on literacy

coaching as well as help districts and schools develop quality

programs. A Web site (www.literacycoachingonline.org),

launched in October 2006, will offer information on coaching qualifications and best practices.

According to Clearinghouse Director Nancy Shanklin,

who operates out of the University of Colorado at Denver,

the lack of clarity on the coach’s role—and even the different

names used to describe that individual—remain an issue.

“These problems of definition and qualifications lead to concern about whether we can prove that literacy coaching is

effective. Or, if there is such a range in coaching that it will

be proven ineffective,” she notes. 

In this issue of Northwest Education, we visit some places in

our region where coaches clearly are making their mark. At

one Oregon high school, a coach inspires teachers to incorporate literacy lessons whether the subject is biology or

geometry. In Alaska’s largest district, coaches are helping to

boost elementary reading scores. And, in Idaho and Washington, intensive professional development provides robust

coaching for coaches.

Whether they’re working in preschools or high schools,

we can only urge coaches to get their game on. In the words

of Vince Lombardi, “It is time for us all to stand and cheer for

the doer, the achiever, the one who recognizes the challenges

and does something about it.” 

—Rhonda Barton, bartonr@nwrel.org

EDITOR‘S NOTE

Photo: © James Boulette
5

NORTHWEST EDUCATION FEATURES

TEAMING UP WITH

LITERACY COACHES

FALL 2006 / VOL. 12. NO. 1

K–3 literacy coaches help boost reading scores in Anchorage 6

A coach brings unity and organization to a bilingual school 12

Michael Kamil talks about the promise of coaching 16

Practical training paves the way for “in-the-moment” coaching 18

Literacy is child’s play in an innovative Head Start program 22 

A master coach shows how to give stellar performances 26

High school teachers embrace schoolwide literacy 30

A homegrown instructional model helps create lifelong learners 36
6 nwrel.org/nwedu/ A daily 90-minute “walk to read” period has helped boost Tyson Elementary’s reading scores.
FINDING GOLDat the end of the

RAINBOW

Anchorage’s investment in literacy coaching pays big dividends.

Story by RHONDA BARTON

Photos by JIM LAVRAKAS

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 7

ANCHORAGE, Alaska—It’s 10:15 a.m. and a jazzy version of “Somewhere

Over the Rainbow” comes blaring out of the public address system. All

along the corridor, doors fly open and the hall fills with a tidal wave of

bodies. It’s “walk to read” time and the 390 boys and girls of William

Tyson Elementary are in a hurry to join their assigned reading groups. 

Every school day, the same scene repeats. Students spend 90 minutes in

a reading block where youngsters are grouped by reading level. Using the

Success for All model pioneered by researchers Robert Slavin and Nancy

Madden, teachers structure their lessons around phonics. They encourage

cooperative learning and constantly monitor their students’ progress. With

assessments conducted every eight to nine weeks, children can move up

to a more advanced reading group or receive individualized help—

depending on how well they’re doing.

And, overall, they appear to be doing well. Tyson was recognized by the

federal government as a Distinguished Title I School. It made AYP in

2004—the first year that Reading First was implemented—and last year

more than 70 percent of its third-graders scored proficient or advanced on

the statewide reading assessment. Those are no small feats considering

Tyson’s demographics: Half the students are English language learners,

100 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and about a third of

the school turns over every year.
Principal John Kito, who has led the

school since it opened nine years ago,

takes an active role in the literacy effort.

“It’s important to be a champion of our

students and supportive of teachers in

encouraging the fidelity of our [Success for All] program,” says Kito,

whose heritage is both Japanese and

Alaska Native. “You really need to be

an instructional leader as well as a

building manager.”

Kito meets weekly with literacy

coach Erin Binek. They have a standing date at 10 on Monday mornings to

look at student data, review kids’

progress, and discuss Binek’s staff

development plans. Student achievement is also the focus of monthly

meetings that Kito and Binek hold with

grade-level and instructional teams. 

Parents aren’t left out of the equation, either. Four times a year, the

school organizes “parent universities”

where one of the main messages is that

reading is important. Whether the

home language is Hmong, Mien,

Samoan, Spanish, Cambodian, or Thai,

parents learn why they should read to

their kids and how to do it.

Faithfully following the model

While Tyson is one of six Reading First

schools in the Anchorage School District, it’s the only one that’s adopted the

Success for All model. And, its laserlike focus on reading spans kindergarten to sixth grade. Binek admits that

some criticize Success for All as too

prescriptive. “But, a lot of our kids need

that structure,” she points out. “They

need to know what comes next and

have us all speaking the same language.”

As the literacy coach, one of Binek’s

responsibilities is to observe whether

teachers are using the curriculum

properly. “In the beginning, there were

teachers who were really uncomfortable having me come into their classrooms, but now, they don’t even notice

me half the time. Some ask me to

come, especially when they’re doing an

assessment,” she says.

Indeed, Angela Agnus barely glances

up when Binek strides into her secondgrade classroom. Nine children squirm

cross-legged on the carpet in front of

Agnus, whispering in Hmong. All are

recent arrivals to the United States and

all are considered monolingual. 

“Listen to my sounds,” says Agnus

as she pronounces L-I-K-E, with each

letter distinctly articulated. The youngsters excitedly yell back, “LIKE,” and so

it goes as the class tackles a series of

words and sentences that illustrate the

words’ meanings.

Binek, meanwhile, spends a quiet 15

minutes individually evaluating one of

Agnus’s students. Later, she explains

that the Hmong language doesn’t contain the letters “b” or “d” so it’s difficult

for these children to hear or make such

sounds. “This little boy is starting to

get words; he can sound them out but

not blend them,” she says. Binek is

hopeful, though, that he’ll repeat his

classmates’ progress. “At the beginning

of the year, many of these kids couldn’t

speak English at all,” she remembers.

“Now (seven months later), some can’t

keep quiet!” 

A couple of doors down, first-grade

teacher Stacy Pickens works with a

“Reading Roots” group that’s one step

more advanced than Agnus’s. She grabs

her shin and announces with feeling,

“My leg has pain!” The “ai” combination pops up on a classroom screen,

followed by a brief, lively video featuring Alphie the Alligator sounding out

the word “tail.” The fast-paced class

moves from one activity to the next:

Youngsters play a game contrasting

opposites like lumpy and smooth; they

read together from an oversized book,

stopping to discuss the pictures; and

they point to classmates wearing sneakers, noting that the letters “ea” and “er”

go together.

“Every word is intentional,” says

Pickens, in describing her lesson. “And,

I’m constantly checking to make sure

the kids understand.” Her dozen students sport nametags that hint at their

far-flung roots: Jh’Darius, Nyajook,

Phia, Yeng, Falesiva, and Changkueth

come from places as distant as the

Sudan, Laos, and Thailand. 

With so many children entering the

system at different levels of fluency,

using a tiered assessment program

becomes even more critical. “Depending on whether they’re a benchmark,

strategic, or intensive student, we try to 8 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Coach Erin Binek assists teachers with assessments, a major component of the Success for All model.
FINDING GOLD AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW

In a class with a high number of ELL students, Stacy Pickens works intensively on phonemic awareness.

readers doesn’t fall on just these two

women’s shoulders. Every certified

teacher in the building is considered a

reading teacher. As a result, says Binek,

“We see our kids learning every day.”

Getting results 

The gains made by Reading First

schools in Anchorage have been dramatic. Last year, all six improved by 8 to

20 points on the state’s standards-based

reading assessment. Half the Reading

First schools are well above the district

average of 80.8 percent proficiency. The

other half inched close to the average

with scores in the 70s. 

Statewide Reading First Coordinator

Stacy McKeown gives coaches like

Binek much of the credit for the jump

in test results. “Coaches play a large

role,” she says. “They’re in the classrooms all the time. They guide gradelevel teams in analyzing the data and get

them to dig deep and see what they can

do to enhance their instruction to meet

the specific needs of their students.”

Patricia McRae, the Reading First

director for the Anchorage School District, also recognizes the importance of

coaches in ensuring that teachers consistently deliver a comprehensive curriculum with excellent instructional

practice. “Having expert coaches to

work through all aspects of literacy

instruction with our teachers is a critical

component to our success,” she says.

Across the district, the number of

kindergarten students reading at grade

level increased six points to 80 percent.

“This was a significant increase,” says

figure out what’s the best intervention—whether it’s language, or fluency,

or phonics,” says Binek. “Instead of just

guessing—‘oh well, he’s not reading, I

think it might be this’—we can actually

find out in testing that [the student]

doesn’t know a particular sound and we

need to teach it to him before we do

anything else.”

Binek shares her book-jammed

office with Title I Reading Specialist

Judith Burtner, whom she calls her

“mentor.” But, responsibility for helping Tyson students become strong

READING FIRST AROUND THE NORTHWEST

(Subgrant Awards as of September 2006)

State No. of Districts/Schools

Alaska 3/14

Idaho 16/30

Montana 24/33

Oregon 21/50

Washington 34/70

Total U.S. 1,717/5,666

Source: SEDL Reading First Database

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 9
McRae. “In looking at where the

increases occurred, the majority were

seen in schools that are utilizing a core

curriculum, and all of these schools

had reading coaches from full time to

part time each week.” 

Because of the impressive gains at

Reading First schools, Anchorage has

committed to adopting similar strategies and materials across the district.

Each year, it will introduce Houghton

Mifflin Reading in a dozen schools

until the structured program is in all 60

elementary schools. In 2006–2007, the

district will deploy nine Title I reading

coaches, along with six support teachers, at non–Reading First schools

adopting the new curriculum. 

One such teacher is Jody HagenSmith, who divides her time among 10

schools. There’s no “typical” day in

Hagen-Smith’s schedule. She might be

modeling lessons, observing in classrooms, sharing research, or meeting

with teachers to discuss lesson plans.

Much of her time is dedicated to working with new teachers.

Helping with assessments is typically an easy entry point for a coach.

When Hagen-Smith started coaching,

she began by providing information on

analyzing test results. But, she quickly

learned that a coach must build relationships while trying to pry open the

classroom door. “You have to be

respectful of what the teachers were

doing before—never be critical and

approach everything with a positive

attitude,” she advises. 

“Jody gets working with teachers,”

says Phillip Schneider, principal of

Gladys Wood, one of Hagen-Smith’s

assigned schools. “People feel comfortable going to her to discuss in a nonthreatening way their challenges as well

as their triumphs.”

Schneider relies on Hagen-Smith’s

judgment in gauging how his teachers

are implementing the new Houghton

Mifflin curriculum. “We knew we were

going to have some turtles and hares:

some teachers who would jump in and

others with their own ‘tried and true’

approach who would resist change.”

Coaching the coaches

How to deal with such resisters is a

common dilemma. Hagen-Smith and

about four dozen other literacy coaches

gathered on an uncharacteristically

sunny day in March to get advice from

a pro—consultant Cathy Toll, author

of two widely respected books, The Literacy Coach’s Survival Guide: Essential

Questions and Practical Answers and The

Literacy Coach’s Desk Reference: Processes

and Perspectives for Effective Coaching. 

Toll cautioned them not to hide their

expertise, but not to come off as

“experts,” either. Instead, coaches need

to build trust and lay the foundation for

their work. That work can take many

forms—from meeting with teachers in

small groups to working one-on-one or

offering demonstration lessons.

Plucking a willing candidate from

the audience, Toll role-played how to

approach the resistant teacher—an

exercise that required heavy doses of

diplomacy, tact, and perseverance. Toll

started the conversation—which she

likened to a first date—by asking,

“When you think about the reading

and writing you want your students to

do, and the kind of teaching you want

to do, and the kind of classroom you

want to have, what gets in the way?”

Almost like a psychiatrist gently probing a patient’s psyche, Toll kept prompting the teacher to tell her more and then

repeated what she heard to make sure

she understood. The ultimate goal was

to help the teacher uncover roadblocks

to effective literacy instruction and work

together to solve them.

In the end, one audience member

wanted to know how Toll was able to

keep pushing and trying to engage the

obviously reluctant teacher. “I’m going

to nudge as much as I can,” she said.

10 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Coaches have helped Anchorage’s kindergarten students reach a reading proficiency rate of 80 percent. 

Coach Jody Hagen-Smith divides her time

among 10 schools.
“It’s my job to start a conversation and engage you. If I didn’t

it would be like saying ‘that child is so far behind, let’s forget

about him.’”

Bringing it back to the struggling student—the ultimate

beneficiary of coaching—struck a chord with the audience.

“Thanks for the metaphor, because I would never give up on

a child,” said one coach.

For Hagen-Smith, the lessons of the day reinforced what

she’s learned in two years on the frontlines of coaching. “The

most successful classrooms have been [ones with] teachers

who realize that my position is not evaluative. I’m not in the

classroom making judgments, but being a support. I’m there

as a sounding board.” ■

Cereal and Stories: A Breakfast Reading Club Fills Minds 

and Tummies

FINDING GOLD AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 11

Across the country, literacy coaching is gaining popularity as a

way to deliver ongoing professional development to teachers.

While many schools and districts have hired reading coaches,

the largest and most rapid expansion in coaching has come

through the Reading First initiative. In more than 5,600 Reading First schools, coaches are working with teachers and principals with the goal of ensuring that every child reads at or

above grade level by the end of third grade. 

However, in the midst of this burgeoning movement, little is

known about how coaching actually works in schools. How do

Reading First coaches spend their time? To what degree do

they provide individualized professional development to teachers? And, do coaches’ roles vary depending on where they

work or their backgrounds?

Those questions are the crux of an applied research project

under way at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. A

team of six researchers—including two faculty members from

Western Washington University—is sifting through data collected as part of five statewide evaluations of Reading First programs. Findings from teacher and coach surveys administered

at 202 Reading First schools are combined with in-depth interviews from a subset of those schools. Together, the information

will paint a picture of how literacy coaches work in schools.

Reading First—described by the federal government as

“the largest and most focused early reading initiative ever

undertaken in this country”—has pumped almost $5 billion into

supporting scientifically based reading instruction during the

past five years.

The program funds states—which in turn fund districts and

schools—to build the four “pillars” that sustain a good reading

program. These pillars include professional development, leadership and collaboration, use of assessment, and instruction. Within

each of these areas, Reading First provides guidelines for the use

of scientifically based programs and approaches.

It can be a daunting task for schools to address all

four pillars at the same time: Coaches can be a linchpin

in making it happen. But, NWREL’s research reveals

that how coaches approach their job can vary widely.

Even though the Reading First framework is the same,

coaching doesn’t look the same everywhere.

“We’ve identified four clusters of coaches,” says

Theresa Deussen, the principal investigator of the study.

“Although coaches in each of the clusters do some one-on-one

coaching with teachers, it can vary from 10 to 48 percent of

their work week.” Deussen describes the different coaching

styles as follows:

• Coaches who emphasize working with data

• Those who provide direct services to students

• “Managers” who invest a lot of time in coordinating and

facilitating Reading First work

• Coaches who spend most of their week working closely with

teachers on instruction

The last category breaks into several subgroups. According

to Deussen, “one group spends half its time working with individual teachers while another, larger subset delivers a lot of

coaching to groups rather than to individual teachers.” Those

who focus on individual coaching also differ in whether they

take a more directive or reflective approach. 

Deussen notes that the study doesn’t judge whether

coaches’ time is better spent modeling lessons in the classroom or mining test results. But, it does point out the lack of

agreement on what coaching should look like and how coaching is influenced by factors such as school size and urban versus rural location.

Based on cross-state surveys, there also appear to be differences from one state to the next. In looking at qualitative data

from Washington, Montana, Arizona, Wyoming, and Alaska,

LeAnne Robinson and Tracy Coskie of Western Washington University have discovered that coaches within states generally focus

on similar types of tasks, and the focus varies among the states.

The research team believes that variations in coaching may speak

to differences in state-level professional development.

“As it stands right now, there are a lot of assumptions being

made about various coaching models,” says Robinson. “This is

one of the first studies that may actually begin to clarify what the reality of coaching is, as well as what it

can be.”

The study will be published in February 2007 on a

Regional Educational Laboratory Network Web site:

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/. Look for a

link from NWREL’s site: www.nwrel.org.

NWREL RESEARCH EXAMINES HOW READING FIRST COACHES SPEND THEIR TIME

Theresa Deussen
12 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Putting It All Together

Literacy Coaching and the English Language Learner

Story by BRACKEN REED • Photos by SARA GETTYS

SUNNYSIDE, Washington—Located in the heart of the fertile Yakima Valley, Sunnyside, Washington, is a town in transition. Packed schools, housing shortages, and other strains on the

social fabric are testament to more than a decade of rapid growth and changing demographics. Between 1990 and 2000 this formerly depressed farm town grew by 25 percent—a rate

that has not dropped off in the current decade. 

That growth is even more evident in the Hispanic population. Sunnyside has been home

to a large and politically active Hispanic community since at least the 1960s—including

housing one of the few United Farmworkers of America offices outside California. But, the

native Spanish-speaking population has exploded from 46 percent in 1990 to almost 76 percent of the total population today. 

The Sunnyside School District shows all the signs of these seismic shifts. At Pioneer Elementary—one of four elementary schools in the district—87 percent of the students are Hispanic and an equal number qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. A pre-K–4 school, built

in 1996, Pioneer is already nearing its capacity, serving an average of 945 students per year. A

large English language learner population, combined with high poverty and high mobility

rates, has contributed to test scores that are just below the state average in most subject areas. 

Despite these challenges, both Pioneer Elementary and the district as a whole have made

significant progress during the past three years. Pioneer has continually met its adequate

yearly progress goals. It’s raised the number of fourth-graders who meet state reading benchmarks by nearly 20 points, from percentages in the mid-40s to the mid-60s. 

Several factors have contributed to the school’s progress, but three stand out: the implementation of a dual language program in 2002–2003; a three-year Reading First grant that

began in 2003–2004; and the hiring of an on-site literacy coach as part of that grant. Together,

these elements have helped create what was previously missing at the school: a well-coordinated, schoolwide reading program that meets the needs of all students, including English

language learners.
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 13
Ready for a Change

“You don’t get on the list of potential Reading First schools

because they like you,” says Pioneer Elementary Principal

Kristine Diddens, when asked about the state of her school’s

reading program prior to the Reading First grant. “You get

there because your scores are less than stellar.” 

The statement is typical of Diddens, a veteran administrator not given to glossing the truth, complaining, or making

excuses. “We were doing some things well [before the

grant],” she says, “but they were being done in isolation.

There was definitely room for improvement, and we saw

Reading First as an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.”

The timing could not have been better. The district had

reached the end of its seven-year curriculum cycle and was

already looking at adopting a new reading program. Teachers

were also ready for a change, says Diddens. “We had a great

deal of buy-in from the staff, partly because it was at a time in

the cycle when they were expecting a change in the curriculum anyway. The curriculum we were using wasn’t on the

state-approved list, so we knew we’d have to choose something else if we applied for the grant.” 

Two major factors influenced their choice of a core reading program. First, as a district with significant school-toschool mobility, administrators wanted to create districtwide

consistency. 

Second, Diddens and the other administrators felt

strongly that the reading program should serve the entire K–3

grade span covered by the grant. Many programs, they found,

were designed for either K–1 or 2–3 only. “We brought all of

the schools together to discuss what we wanted to do,” says

Diddens, “and we all agreed that we wanted the whole package—we wanted to be able to maintain continuity across the

grade levels, as well as throughout the district.” 

With these criteria in mind, the district chose the Open

Court reading program and received its Reading First grant in

2003. Professional development began almost immediately.

The Washington State Office of the Superintendent of

Public Instruction held a summer reading institute for all

Reading First schools, which included breakout training sessions provided by each school’s reading program of choice.

This was followed by a three-day Open Court training session at the school, and another three-day program especially

for literacy coaches. 

The hiring of a literacy coach—a requirement of the

grant—was the key to the entire program, says Diddens.

“Hiring the right person as the literacy coach is the first big

decision you have to make [as an administrator],” she says.

“It’s even more important than choosing the curriculum.

You’ve got to have somebody that can keep people moving in

the right direction and encourage them to continually stretch

their skills and try new things.”

Kelly Wavrin, Didden’s choice as coach, is in many ways

the prototype of a successful literacy coach. She’s an experienced classroom teacher with a master’s

degree in reading and literacy, professional

development experience, and the respect

of her fellow teachers. At the time, Wavrin

was at Outlook Elementary, another

school in the district, but she had previously taught at Pioneer and was well

acquainted with most of its staff. She had

also been part of a literacy team that attended the state’s initial

Reading First meetings, and so was familiar with the requirements from the very beginning. 

Making It Your Own

Four years into the Reading First program, most educators

have some familiarity with its general guidelines, whether

their own school or district has a grant or not. At Pioneer, the

essential components of Reading First are all firmly in place: 

• A highly qualified, school-level literacy coach

• A daily 90-minute block of direct reading instruction at

the appropriate level of difficulty for each student

• The implementation of a state-approved, research-based,

core reading program—in this case, Open Court

• The use of an approved assessment tool to monitor individual student progress—in all Washington Reading First

schools this is the state-mandated DIBELS (Dynamic

Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) program

• The use of that assessment data to target specific student

needs with approved supplements and interventions

Less visible is how a school can shape those requirements

to meet the specific needs of its student population. As Wavrin

sees it, “You do have that flexibility to look at it in light of your

own student body, and some of that is in the choices you can

make from the list of supplemental materials and interventions. It’s not one size fits all. We try to be very intentional

about how we apply those—to make sure that the student is

getting the right intervention, not just an intervention.”

For Pioneer, shaping Reading First to meet the needs of its

student body means blending it with a Spanish/English duallanguage program. The school started the program with two

dual-language kindergarten classrooms, one year before getting the Reading First grant. That initial group of students

has carried the program to each successive grade level, so that

the program now stretches from kindergarten to third grade, 14 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Top: Pioneer

Elementary literacy

coach Kelly Wavrin 

sits in on a firstgrade reading class,

occasionally helping

students and providing

teachers with

immediate feedback.

Bottom: Funding the

literacy coach position beyond the Reading First

grant is a primary goal for Principal Kristine

Diddens.
and will eventually be schoolwide. Each grade level will then

have two dual-language classrooms.

The dual-language model blends easily with the Reading

First program. In kindergarten and first grade, these students

spend the 90-minute “walk to read” block working exclusively

in their native language—Spanish or English. In second grade,

this changes: All students in the program receive 90 minutes

of English instruction, followed by 60 minutes of Spanish.

This “90/60” model continues in all subsequent grade levels.

A large body of research has shown a clear link between

first-language literacy and the acquisition of a second language. For Wavrin, believing in that research was a leap of

faith. “We didn’t really have any data until the third year,” she

says, “so you kind of hold your breath. But the data that came

in this year are really exciting. Those students are good readers in Spanish, and all the evidence is that those skills are

transferring to English. They still have a lot of irregular and

high-frequency words to learn, but they’re reading in

English, and that’s awesome. It’s really gratifying to build that

foundation and then to watch the data soar.”

Help Where It’s Needed Most 

According to Wavrin, watching the data is the biggest change

Reading First has brought to the school. “It involves a very

intentional, very explicit use of data to inform our teaching,

in a way that we really weren’t doing before,” she says.

DIBELS, the formal assessment tool, is the driving force

behind that change. “DIBELS has not only changed the way

we assess kids,” says Diddens, “it’s changed the way the entire

staff thinks about reading, and it’s changed the way we teach.”

A DIBELS benchmark assessment is given three times a

year, but Pioneer uses the program to monitor student

progress much more frequently. “It’s the key to our intervention program,” says Wavrin. “We don’t just wait until January

for the first formal assessment. We do baseline testing in September to see each student’s skill level. And then we test

them again a month later to see what kind of progress they’re

making. That’s when we can really start to target any skill

deficits they have and get them the help they need.” 

At Pioneer, that help can range from the subtle to the

intensive. Student who are just missing the benchmark, for

instance, are “hot listed”—an approach that involves supplementing instruction within the classroom in very simple

ways. First-graders struggling with the transition between

short and long vowels, for instance, will often sing the long

vowel sounds with the teacher as they transition between

activities. “We’re just identifying those students who need a

little extra practice,” explains Wavrin. “It’s an acknowledgment that even students who don’t necessarily need a reading

intervention can benefit from quick, targeted activities. We

don’t have any minutes to waste.”

At the other end of the spectrum is an intensive, phonicsheavy intervention such as the Lindamood-Bell program

(www.lindamoodbell.com). Designed for small groups of

students—usually five or fewer—with very similar and very

specific skill deficits, the program is administered by a reading specialist who has received a full year of training. Students are in the intervention for an additional 90 minutes

beyond the normal 90-minute reading block. 

While this might seem like a lot of time and money to

spend on such a small group of students, Wavrin defends the

program. “Our job as teachers is to teach every student who

walks through the door, regardless of their background or

skill level,” she says. “And I think we’re doing a really good

job in this building of coming up with those individual solutions. Sometimes—as with the Lindamood-Bell program—

they’re very intensive, very individualized solutions.”

Other interventions fall somewhere in the middle, such as

a more traditional “pull-out” approach that provides the

neediest students, including ELL students, with an extra half

hour (or “double dose”) of reading instruction beyond the

90-minute block. 

Offering such individualized instruction is only possible

with the inclusion of all certified staff, including two special

education teachers, two full-time ELL teachers, a reading

specialist, and the Lindamood-Bell reading specialist. 

If all of this sounds like a scheduling nightmare—not to

mention data overload—that’s where the literacy coach

comes in, says Wavrin: “That’s part of the job—to put all the

pieces together. Some of it is about scheduling and some of it

is about getting into the classroom and modeling and some of

it is just being supportive. What can I do? How can I help?

And then maybe the biggest part is looking at the data, looking at specific students and going over that information with

the grade-level teams to identify what needs to be done.”

The greatest testament to Wavrin’s success as a coach is

also in the data. “We’re seeing more successful readers than

we’ve ever seen before—at every level and in every subgroup,” she says. “And for us, that’s the bottom line: It always

comes back to student achievement. If we’re not seeing

growth and progress in their reading, then we obviously need

to revisit what we’re doing. And if it is working, we need to

keep doing it and reflecting on how to do it even better.” ■

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 15

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
16 nwrel.org/nwedu/

You would expect Michael Kamil to be one of the nation’s

strongest boosters of reading coaches. The distinguished

Stanford University education professor has written compellingly and at length about the sorry state of literacy among

America’s youth. He was one of 14 members of the National

Reading Panel, whose work gave rise to the Reading First initiative that mandates the use of coaches in K–3 classrooms.

And, Kamil collaborated on the recent Standards for Middle

and High School Literacy Coaches—a publication “meant to

stiffen the resolve of education policymakers and schools that

embrace coaching to do so mindfully, so this reform will not go

the way of so many good intentions and produce minimal

results.” 

Still, Kamil isn’t shy about pointing out there’s scant

research specifically supporting literacy coaching. He’s also

up-front about the fact that many coaches are ill-prepared for

their job. In a May 2006 visit to the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory—where Kamil serves as an advisor on

research methodology—he sat down with Northwest Education to talk about the present state of coaching. 

Q:

A hefty amount of public and private funding is being

invested right now in literacy coaching. What evidence

supports that investment?

At this point, we have absolutely no single piece of evidence

that coaching is effective: no research studies, no published

research, no randomized control-style studies. There is literally nothing out there that would justify the kind of money

that we’re spending in states like Florida, where they’re putting a coach in every school. So far, the data suggest that many

of these coaches don’t have advanced credentials in reading

instruction. I think that’s one of the problems. But, here’s the

other conclusion: If coaching is done right, there’s every reason to believe that it should work.

You’ve said there are very few ways to do it right and many ways to

do it wrong. If the research isn’t there, how do we know what the

right ways are? 

What we do know—and this is from the National Reading

Panel—is that if teachers learn what you’re teaching them in

professional development and if you get them to do that with

their students, and then you measure the student outcomes,

the kids do better.

What are some of the reasons why some coaches may not be effective?

First, they’re not prepared. [Some] don’t have the proper

credentials or the proper knowledge. They’re very often chosen because they were good teachers, but they were good

teachers of children. They often know very little about adult

learning, which is dramatically different from the way kids

learn. So, that’s part of the problem.

At the middle and high school level, it becomes even more

difficult because there’s a content issue. What we have

learned is that reading in different content areas requires different skills. If you don’t believe that, you can just think

about reading history and reading science. If you want to

WHAT WE KNOW—AND DON’T KNOW—

ABOUT COACHING

A Conversation With Professor Michael Kamil
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 17

summarize some science material, the details are very important. You know, the detail about two hydrogens and one oxygen is pretty critical. In history, it won’t matter whether

William the Conqueror arrived in 1066 or 1065. What really

matters is a whole series of things that were put in place

because of that—the broad sweep of political movements, of

world events. Was the Magna Carta on two sheets of paper or

one sheet of paper? It doesn’t matter. But in science, those

details are absolutely critical.

How do we develop literacy coaches who have knowledge of the

research in literacy and experience in adult learning, but can also

work with specific content-area teachers?

I’d go after preservice licensing first. I would work on that

end of things. We turn out a lot of teachers in the middle and

high school levels who have never had a course in how to

teach reading to middle and high school students.

So you’d put that into the requirements for teacher certification? 

That’s the first thing. But to rely only on that would mean

that we’re going to write off kids for four or five years while

those teachers are being trained. Or even longer, because

we’re not going to replace all those teachers who don’t have

that training all at once. The second thing is that we need dramatic professional development. We need intensive, coordinated professional development that’s sustained and

organized over multiyear periods so that teachers begin to

focus on what they can do in their classrooms. 

And what role would literacy coaches play in that?

They could do the fine-tuning of this general information,

[which would be] different from the kind of professional

development that’s done outside of the classroom. You need

both: what I call declarative knowledge, which is the stuff you

have in your head about how to teach, and then you need

practical knowledge. You know, “when I was in this situation,

did I do the right thing?” That’s what a coach can do. [She

could say] here’s a new reading strategy that you could use or

here’s another way to teach vocabulary, for example. 

So, what’s the bottom line on coaching?

If done right, I believe it has to work. You know, all the evidence would suggest it has to work. But, that’s only if it’s

done right. And there are infinitely more ways to screw this

up than almost anything else. ■

SETTING THE STANDARD

Trained literacy coaches offer one line of attack in dealing

with adolescent literacy—a problem of epic proportions. In

Standards for Middle and High School Literacy Coaches, Michael

Kamil and his colleagues define the “ideal” coach. But, they

emphasize that few newly minted coaches will possess all the

needed skills. It may take coaches two to three years to meet

these standards:

• Skillful collaborators—able to function effectively in middle

and high school settings

• Skillful job-embedded coaches—able to act as instructional coaches for teachers in core areas such as language

arts, science, social studies, and math

• Skillful evaluators of literacy needs—able to collaborate

with school leadership teams and teachers to interpret and

use assessment data to inform instruction 

• Skillful instructional strategists—able to develop and

implement instructional strategies to improve academic

literacy in specific content areas

Five organizations partnered in establishing the coaching

standards: the International Reading Association and the

national councils of English, mathematics, science, and social

studies teachers. They envision coaches as master teachers

who lead the school’s overall literacy strategy.

According to the authors, the best coaching candidates are

experienced secondary school teachers with a master’s degree

in literacy or a reading endorsement. Furthermore, successful coaches are “skilled listeners, good questioners, accomplished problem solvers, and professionals who embody

strong reflective capabilities and are able to develop trusting

relationships with a variety of people” (p. 8). 

For more on the standards, see International Reading

Association, (2006), Standards for middle and high school literacy

coaches, Newark, DE: Author. The full text of the publication

can be downloaded as a PDF at www.reading.org/resources/

issues/reports/coaching.html
18 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Photos: © José Carlos Pires Pereira
BOISE, Idaho—“You’ve got coach in your title now, so you’ve got

instant credibility, right?” That’s the question Frances Bessellieu asks a group of literacy coaches gathered in a Holiday Inn

conference room. The sarcasm in her voice is as thick as her

North Carolina drawl, and the coaches are right with her.

It’s the first morning of a two-day summer Reading First

Leadership Summit—a gathering of the literacy coaches from

each of the 30 Reading First schools in the state of Idaho—

and Bessellieu and her training partner, Marisa Russo, have

already earned the coaches’ trust. Bessellieu and Russo get it.

They’ve been there. They’re not going to waste the coaches’

time with vague advice and generalities. They’re here to train

the coaches in a very specific coaching strategy that can be

implemented as soon as school starts in the fall. It’s going to

be hands-on and it’s going to be candid about the challenges

of literacy coaching. “You all are like middle management,”

Bessellieu says to the coaches, “you get it going up and you

get it coming down.”

In Idaho, literacy coaches may get the usual allotment of

grief, but they also get practical, real-world professional

development. It’s been a hallmark of the state’s Reading First

program from the beginning, and it’s had a measurable effect

on the state’s reading scores. Since 2002, student scores on

the Idaho Reading Indicator have risen at a steady pace. The

percentage of kindergartners reading at grade level has risen

nearly 20 points, for instance, from 64 percent in 2002 to 82

percent in 2006. Third-graders, historically a lower scoring

group, have also shown hard-won improvement, rising from

62 percent in 2002 to 67 percent in 2006. During the same

time, the scores of the Title I subgroup have gone up: 77 percent of Title I kindergarten students scored at grade level in

2006, for example, compared to 56 percent in 2002. While

linking these results to individual factors is still a work in

progress, top-quality professional development has been an

undeniable factor in Idaho’s improvement.

Refining the Process

A targeted approach to professional development has been

there from the beginning, says Rose Rettig, the current director of Idaho’s Reading First program. A former teacher, Rettig also held a Reading First–funded position as a literacy

coach and assessment coordinator for two schools before 

taking her current position. 

“One of the directions we went in as a state was to provide

the coaches with specific strategies,” says Rettig. “Part of that

was because coaching was so new for everybody—not just

the coaches, but teachers and principals, also. Nobody knew

what they were getting into. We felt like we could get up to

speed on the curriculum, but we needed some really practical training in coaching and in how to support that position.”

The training began with the Consortium of Reading Excellence, a consulting firm that conducted two separate sessions,

one for coaches and one for principals. “That was a great way

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 19

SIDE SIDE

The Idaho Reading First program finds success 

by offering targeted professional development 

to its literacy coaches.

Story by BRACKEN REED • Photos by ROSE RETTIG

by
to begin,” says Rettig. “It helped define our roles right from

the start. It articulated what we were there to do—and not

do—and it gave us some strategies for doing it.”

From there, the state provided training in Cognitive

CoachingSM—an overall approach to coaching that emphasizes metacognition and reflective practice, and that helped

provide a context for much of the training that followed.

Now heading into the fourth year of the program, those

trainings have become progressively tighter in focus. A key to

that refinement, says Rettig, is listening to the coaches. “We

have monthly meetings that bring all the coaches together,”

she says, “and that gives us a chance to stay in touch with

where they are—what they’re dealing with and what their

needs are. That really helps drive our decisions about what

kind of professional development to provide.”

And that’s where Bessellieu and Russo come into the picture. Of Idaho’s 30 Reading First schools, 24 chose the

SRA/McGraw-Hill Open Court Reading program as their

core reading curriculum. While teachers, coaches, and administrators have consistently given Open Court Reading glowing

reviews, the explicit nature of the program has raised some

issues for coaches.

Ensuring that a teacher implements the curriculum with

fidelity sometimes requires a coach to provide direct guidance

and feedback “in the moment.” And sometimes, coaches are

finding, that creates a tense situation. How do you deal with

resistance? How do you deal with teachers who aren’t receptive

to what you’re there to do? How do you avoid making it personal? Those are real-world questions and the coaches wanted

real-world training. Rettig listened and made it happen.

Bessellieu and Russo are national consultants for

SRA/McGraw-Hill. Bessellieu, a former Reading Excellence

Act coordinator and director of reading at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina, also served on the federal

Reading First review panel, reviewing state grant applications. Russo, meanwhile, is a veteran elementary teacher in

southern California who has mastered Open Court teaching

strategies. Together they are a dynamic training team, capable

of covering both specific Open Court strategies and the finer

points of coaching, complete with sidekick comedy. 

Model, Practice, Apply

Side-by-side is an SRA-developed coaching model that, like

Open Court Reading, has clear guidelines that are fully supported. “It’s extreme scaffolding for teachers who need it,”

Bessellieu tells the coaches. “Not everyone is going to need

it, but if you do, you’ll have it.”

The heart of side-by-side coaching is a seven-step routine.

During the next two days, the coaches will have multiple

opportunities to practice that routine using specific Open

Court lessons as examples. For the six schools that did not

adopt Open Court, those examples are less applicable, but

the training no less useful. Bessellieu tells the group, “Our

goal as trainers is that you will master each step of the coaching routine regardless of which curriculum you are using.”

To guide the coaches to that mastery, Bessellieu and Russo

will use a “model, practice, apply” process, or what they also

refer to as “I do, we do, we do, you do.” They’ll model the

coaching process, they’ll guide the coaches through it as a

whole group, and practice it in small groups. Finally, a pair of

coaches will demonstrate it. 

After a thorough explanation of the coaching routine, Russo

and Bessellieu jump right into the “I do” phase, using a lesson

in the phonemic awareness strategy called oral blending. Oral

blending helps students hear distinct sounds and understand

how those sounds are put together to form words. In the K–1

Open Court classroom it also typically involves a puppet.

Russo, the Open Court Reading expert, challenges Bessellieu to model the oral blending technique. “You don’t even

have to use the puppet,” she coaxes.

“I don’t care for puppets,” Bessellieu admits, giving it a

doubtful look. The specific techniques of Open Court are

not her forte, she confesses—the coaching model is her

expertise—but she’ll try it because they’ve spent some time

this morning talking about the change process and the need

to get both themselves and teachers out of a comfort zone.

Bessellieu puts the puppet on her right hand and begins to

model the lesson. “Puh,” she has the puppet say with her right

hand. “Ig” she says as she opens the fingers of her left. “Pig.” 

There’s a split-second pause between the two syllables,

but as Bessellieu runs through more words the pause is occasionally less distinct, the syllables more blurred together.

“Let’s stop here for a moment,” Russo says, as she steps in.

“That was really great,” she says looking at her training part20 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Trainer Marisa Russo guides teachers through a step in the side-by-side

coaching routine.
ner. “You totally had their attention. I loved the way you used

the puppet.”

Bessellieu shoots her partner a withering look, and as the

coaches laugh it also becomes clear that Bessellieu has intentionally made a “mistake” and that Russo is starting to model

the seven-step, side-by-side coaching routine. First step: Ask

the teacher to pause. Second step: Point out something the

teacher was doing right and give the students a quick assignment. “You guys are being great listeners,” says Russo, turning to the coaches and using her kindergarten teacher’s voice.

“Can you do me a favor? Can you take a minute to think of

three things in your backyard that begin with ‘p’?”

Russo turns back to Bessellieu and continues to the next

step, defining the problem. “It’s important that students

clearly hear the two separate word parts,” she explains. “If the

pause between the two syllables isn’t distinct, students won’t

get the concept.”

After Russo also describes the finer points of “p” versus

the incorrect “puh”—another deliberate mistake on Bessellieu’s part—she moves to the next, delicate step in the

process. “Would you like me to model it for you?” 

“Please!” Bessellieu responds, shaking the puppet from

her hand. And so the modeling continues.

Hitting the Target

“The purpose of the coaching routine is that it helps you

focus on the teacher—and ultimately on student performance—instead of the lesson itself,” says Bessellieu. “What

you’re there to do is to provide correct modeling, at the point

of use, with immediate feedback and practice for the teacher.

Your concern is how to get the teacher to independence and

to fidelity to the reading program as soon as possible.”

Before repeating the modeling process, Russo asks the

teachers to pay attention to the kind of language she uses

while coaching her partner. “Anytime you can say things in a

nonevaluative way it improves your chances of really getting

through to a teacher,” she says. “As a coach, you need to

totally shift your thinking and language away from I/me to

you/us. You don’t want to say things like, ‘Well, this part was

good, but ... I would do it this way.’”

After they have modeled the coaching process and oral

blending again, the trainers get the coaches working in small

groups, with one teacher taking the role of the teacher and

one being the coach. “Remember, in the teacher role, you

need to make a mistake on purpose,” says Russo. “You can’t

just do the blending perfectly, as much as you would like to.”

After the small-group practice, Russo calls for volunteers,

and a willing pair of teachers comes to the front. As they act

out the coaching process, the trainers stay out of the way, but

are ready to interrupt if the coaching goes off course.

“That was great,” Bessellieu says, as they finish. “You didn’t

follow the model necessarily, but you hit all the steps. It

flowed. It’s fine to put your own words and thoughts into it.”

Before breaking for lunch, the trainers recap the morning

session. “You see how this went from very directed to all on

you?” asks Bessellieu. “That’s where you want to take the

teachers. As a coach, you don’t want to claim ownership—

you want to empower the teachers to own it. You model it for

them. You guide them through it, several times if needed,

and then you have them do it. By the end, they own it.”

By the end of the two-day conference, the coaches will own

the side-by-side coaching routine, and will have another tool

in their belt to address specific classroom situations. According

to Rettig, this training is one of eight formal training sessions

the coaches will receive during the year, most of which are also

available to non–Reading First coaches in the state. These

trainings are becoming even more targeted, says Rettig. “As

things have progressed we’ve really gotten our foundation

under us,” she says. “And now we can start to refine the coaching process. That’s what this training is all about.”

As they head to lunch, several of the coaches reflect on the

morning’s session and the ongoing quality of professional

development they receive as Reading First coaches. “The best

training we get is provided by the state or the people they

bring in,” says one. 

“We went to the national Reading First conference in New

Orleans and it wasn’t nearly as good as what we get here in

Idaho,” agrees a coach from the same district. “No knock on

those presenters, but most of the sessions just didn’t apply to

us. They weren’t specific to our needs.”

Meeting those specific needs is what it’s all about in Idaho,

and for Bessellieu, it’s what makes Idaho a state to emulate.

“The relationship between SRA and the state of Idaho is a

model for that kind of interaction,” she says. “If I could replicate it across the country, I would. What works about it is that

they’re very specific about letting us know what they need,

and then we can directly address those needs. The trainings

are targeted, and that’s how it should be. ■

SIDE BY SIDE

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 21

After modeling the routine, Frances Bessellieu leads teachers in small

group practice.
Serious

An Early Reading First grant helps five Oregon Head Start programs 

implement an innovative curriculum.

Story and photos by BRACKEN REED

PORTLAND, Oregon—Given the option, few people would

choose to spend a sunny summer day in a windowless church

basement, but the two dozen preschoolers and four adults

crowding into classroom B of the Albina Head Start

Lutheran Center don’t seem to mind. The cement walls are

covered with brightly colored posters, artwork, and curriculum materials, and “outside time” will come soon enough.

For now, the three- to five-year-old students are abuzz with

excitement—remarkably so, considering they’re about to

begin several hours of intensely structured, literacy-oriented

activities. Within this academic approach there will be a

whole lot of fun—singing, dancing, laughing, and playing—

and the students know it. What they don’t know is just how

unique their classroom is. 

Albina Head Start is a partner site in Project ExCEL

(Excellence in Cultivating Early Literacy), a three-year project funded by a federal Early Reading First grant and directed

by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Early

Reading First is a federal initiative that focuses on developing

the early language, cognitive, and prereading skills of children in order to prepare them for continued school success.

As a preschool literacy program, it is intended to complement

the K–3 Reading First initiative. Unlike that initiative, however, it is not directly administered by the state. Early Reading First grants—which have totaled about $370 million so

far—typically go directly from the U.S. Department of Education to school districts or organizations at the local level. 

Awarded in October 2005 and funded at almost a million

dollars per year, Project ExCEL involves five Head Start programs across Oregon, and includes a research component. As

part of the research, 13 individual classrooms will receive

training, technical assistance, and curriculum materials. Five

other classrooms with closely matched demographics will

serve as a comparison or “control” group and will receive

annual incentives in place of the treatment. 

In addition to the quasi-experimental study, several other

features of the project break new ground. Each partner site,

for instance, runs full-day, full-year. “That was a requirement

of the grant,” say Steffen Saifer, the director of Project

ExCEL. “It’s very intentional, and it comes from the belief

that the kids need that amount of time in order to get the full

benefit of the program and to make the gains they need.”

22 nwrel.org/nwedu/

pLaY
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 23
Left: Literacy coach Amy Enninga (left) takes a minute to guide lead teacher Artchla Fay Glenn

through the new curriculum. Right: Dancing and singing are all part of learning in the Albina Head Start program.

The defining feature of the project is its blending of two

distinct curricula, Tools of the Mind and Building Language

for Literacy. Tools of the Mind includes clear guidelines for

content delivery, but its main focus is to foster self-regulation

skills, such as the ability to sit still, pay attention, ignore distractions, take turns, cooperate, and reflect before acting.

Building Language for Literacy is a more traditional core literacy curriculum published by Scholastic, Inc., and designed

specifically for preschool children. Combined, the two create

a comprehensive program—called Building Language for

Literacy Plus (BLL+)—that promotes the simultaneous

development of the two skill sets most often cited as necessary for success in kindergarten. “It’s a really thoughtful combination of those two things,” says Saifer. “The elements of

self-regulation are built right into the literacy activities, but

also into all the other activities in the day, including some that

are purely about self-regulation.”

The idea, says Saifer, is that a student who learns to have

those self-regulation skills—to be attentive and cooperative—will be better able to learn the literacy skills that the

teacher is working on. “It’s common sense,” says Saifer, “but

it’s not typically done in such an intentional way.”

Another unusual feature of the project—and a key component in helping teachers skillfully blend the two curricula—is the inclusion of literacy coaches. As with the federal

K–3 Reading First initiative, Early Reading First requires literacy coaches at all grant sites. Accordingly, all five of the

Head Start programs involved in Project ExCEL have a parttime literacy coach who visits each classroom at least three

times a month. 

At Albina, the literacy coach, Amy Enninga, is also a

teacher in the program. Enninga, it turns out, is one of only

a handful of preschool teachers in the country already familiar with the Tools of the Mind model, having taught it for

three years in Denver—where it was developed—before

moving to the Portland area. 

That familiarity has been a major asset for the Albina program. “She really serves as a kind of peer coach,” says Saifer,

“rather than purely a literacy coach. She’s available to the

other teachers more frequently than a literacy coach would

typically be. It’s worked out really well.”

With a full staff to cover for Enninga in her own classroom,

she’s able to visit each of the other classrooms in the Albina

program three times a month. Following her on such a visit

makes it clear why literacy coaches are an essential part of the

project, as well as how unique the BLL+ program can be.

Everybody’s Clapping Hands

Parents can bring their children to this old brick church just

off North Portland’s Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard anytime between seven and nine a.m., but at nine the real day

begins—Artchla Fay Glenn, the lead teacher in “Lutheran B”

classroom, starts the clean-up song. Clapping rhythmically,

Glenn soon has the students singing and clapping along as

they put away their toys and crayons and gather in the center

of the room. 

Glenn’s fellow teachers, Wilma Piggee and Nallely Martinez, also clap and sing along as they shepherd the students

into a semicircle on the floor. As Glenn brings the clean-up

song to a close, she swiftly moves into the first part of the

group-time routine—taking attendance—and with it comes

another song. “Joshua’s here today, Joshua’s here today,” the

whole groups sings and claps in time, “everybody’s clapping

their hands ’cause Joshua’s here today.” And on it goes—

everybody clapping their hands—until each beaming child

has been acknowledged.

With Enninga sitting unobtrusively at the back of the

group, Glenn moves quickly but deliberately through a set of

scripted routines. Students clap in time as they count how

many days of the month they’ve had school. As Glenn moves

on to counting how many days of sunshine there have

been—the daily weather report—she forgets to clap as she

counts. Enninga mimes a clapping motion clear enough for

Glenn to see, and soon they have the students clapping and

counting through the sunny days.

For Glenn, who was just hired at the beginning of the summer, even the smallest bit of coaching is appreciated. “It’s a lot

to remember,” she says with mock exhaustion. “We’ve got a

whole notebook of activities to learn, and each one is specific

24 nwrel.org/nwedu/
about how it’s to be done. I’m getting it, but it really helps to

get some guidance from someone who’s used it before.”

As Glenn moves into the “message of the day” activity, the

subtle blending of literacy and self-regulation becomes more

obvious. Each day, the students have a new message, which

always begins with the phrase “We are going to ....” Each

word is underlined and the students say the words along with

Glenn, word by word. “We start the school year with really

simple messages,” says Enninga, “and then we introduce the

alphabet chart a couple of months into the year.” 

With the chart behind her, Glenn slowly guides the students through the message: “We are going to walk down the

hallway.” When Glenn comes to the word “walk,” Enninga

interrupts in a way so subtle that the students don’t seem to

notice. “What do we notice about walk and we?” she asks.

Glenn picks up the cue without missing a beat and draws the

students’ attention to the initial consonant of each word,

using the alphabet chart behind her to drive home the point.

“The trainers have talked with us about being more directive as coaches,” says Enninga, reflecting on this small intervention, later in the day. “Rather than taking notes and

providing feedback later on, they want us to be really hands

on—to draw a teacher’s attention to something right at the

point of instruction or to model it for them in the classroom.”

In Project ExCEL, both teachers and coaches receive ongoing training. NWREL Program Advisor Lena Ko, herself a

coach at one of the other partner sites, serves as a lead coach,

offering advice and information. Saifer also provides feedback.

“There’s quite a bit of coaching of the coaches,” says Saifer.

“Between Lena and myself and then the [Tools of the Mind]

trainers who come from Denver once a month—they go to

the classroom with the coach and observe them in action.”

That training is essential, says Saifer, partly because some

of the coaches don’t have a lot of experience in that role. “We

focused on hiring people who had two areas of expertise,” he

says, “and those were child development and early literacy.

All of our coaches have lots of experience as teachers, working with preschool-age kids, and two are college instructors.

What they didn’t have, necessarily, was experience coaching

other adults or experience with this particular curriculum.”

According to Ko, one of the challenges of both teaching

and coaching the BLL+ curriculum is that it differs from the

typical early literacy program in subtle but significant ways.

“Other programs typically teach students how to build words

by starting with sounds and letter names,” says Ko. “They

usually start with the alphabet—singing the ABCs—and then

get kids used to the idea that the letter ‘A’ is the symbol that

represents a specific sound, and so on. This program is 

constructed very differently.”

Learning Through Play

The best way to understand the BLL+ approach to literacy is

to look at how it incorporates play into the curriculum. “Play

is really at the heart of this approach,” says Enninga. “The

whole idea is that kids at this age learn best through interacting with each other in ways that are natural and fun, but also

structured—what they call ‘mature play.’”

Both the approach to literacy and the idea of learning

through play are most visible in the piece called “center time”

and in the planning that leads up to it. Center time is 90 minutes of uninterrupted play, during which small groups of students stay in one theme-focused center. Each day, students

can pick which center they want to be in—the blocks center,

the literacy center, the science center, the dramatic play center, and so on. There are six centers—with an average of four

or five students in a center—and the themes change every

three to four weeks. 

To prepare for the center time, each student completes a

play plan, which echoes the earlier message of the day, but

starts with “I” instead of “we.” Students draw a picture of the

activity they are going to do and then “write” the sentence by

putting a line for each word: “I am going to build a skyscraper.”

Each plan is as individual as each child: So is the help the

teachers provide to make a clear plan that can be “read” by

the child the next day. This individualized literacy teaching

or scaffolding is another unique aspect of the curriculum and

an important skill that teachers are trained to use.

“The whole idea of the literacy piece is that children will

learn through writing and through representation or symbolic literacy,” says Ko. “What we want them to understand is

that an idea they have—that they can say—can also be represented in written form. You start with drawing and then you

focus on getting a good message out of that drawing—a clear,

short message that they can break down into the next part,

which is the sentence. Then they show their sentence by putting a line down for each word, and they read it back to you.

So, it builds—one piece at a time. Once they have the ability

to write their own lines, then you start with the individual

sounds that they hear, beginning with the initial consonant.

And from there they begin to understand that not only can

their words be represented by these lines in a sentence, but

that there are also symbols and letters that they can use to

represent those words.”

As the students in Glenn’s classroom hunch over their

drawings and make their lines, one thing is clear—they

haven’t forgotten that this is about play. By the time they get

to their centers, the students have been through an entire

routine of group-time activities. Some, such as the “freeze

game,” included music and dancing, and were almost

entirely about self-regulation. Others incorporated specific

content—such as math and science or literacy. But center

time is clearly the heart of the day. For these kids, learning is

playing and playing is learning. Literacy, self-regulation,

laughter, song, and dance are all part of the same grand experience. Time flies. Before they know it, they’ll be back out in

the afternoon sun. And before long, they’re off to kindergarten. With the help of Project ExCEL, they’ll have everything they need to find success. ■

SERIOUS PLAY

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 25
26 nwrel.org/nwedu/

ACTING

OUT

Master coach Jeffrey Wilhelm helps secondary teachers 

turn literacy lessons into high drama.
VANCOUVER, Washington—Like a tent revival preacher, Jeffrey

Wilhelm has his audience hanging on every word. The highenergy English Education professor from Boise State University bounces around the cavernous atrium of Hudson’s

Bay High School, exhorting secondary teachers to connect

literacy with their classrooms.

Lucky for Wilhelm, most of the audience has already

joined the fold. Maybe that’s because they’ve seen the district’s reading and writing scores steadily climb as the result

of a four-year literacy initiative. Or, maybe they’ve seen

reluctant students come alive during lessons that incorporate

Wilhelm’s dramatic techniques like “hot seat,” “talk radio,” or

“good angel/bad angel.”

Many of these teachers have spent the school year reading

up on Wilhelm’s strategies, practicing them, and discussing

the results in small study groups. They’ve also had the

opportunity to hear Wilhelm and watch him model lessons

on three different visits to the Vancouver School District.

Like faithful congregants, they keep coming back for more.

Choosing his partners

Wilhelm, who somehow finds time to teach university

classes, direct the Boise State Writing Project, author 14

books, and conduct research in middle and high schools, is

understandably picky about the coaching services he offers.

He’s agreed to add Vancouver to his dance card because of the

district’s commitment to literacy.

“I only go into schools where it’s understood by the

administration, the principals, the curriculum director that

everybody’s got to be a teacher of literacy,” he explains. “I’m

very clear before I come to a school district about what the

research base shows is necessary for success: administrative

buy-in and knowledge; active support for making changes

and an evaluation system that encourages risks; and multiple

layers of assistance over time. If those things aren’t in place,

then I’m not really interested because I want to spend my

time doing things that I think will work.” 

Vancouver clearly has the scaffolding in place to make it

work. Each middle and high school in the district employs at

least one literacy specialist. They coach other staff members

and teach special classes for students who are below benchmark but don’t require intensive interventions. At the high

school level, literacy classes not only focus on developing

stronger readers but also target skills needed to pass the

Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL)—a

requirement for graduation starting with the class of 2008. 

Coupled with all those student options is a hefty dose of

professional development for teachers. In the past, faculty

members here have worked intensively with national reading

expert Cris Tovani and Washington school reform researcher

Duane Baker. Layne Curtis, the district’s curriculum director, estimates that about half of Vancouver’s 300 high school

teachers are taking advantage of the latest round of trainings

by Wilhelm. The sessions, paid for by a federal smaller learning community grant, are also open to select middle school

teachers and literacy coaches.

Injecting moves

During his May visit, Wilhelm gets down to business by

addressing problems in instructional practice. “Research

shows that in the typical classroom the teacher talks 80 percent

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 27

Story by RHONDA BARTON

Photos by MOUNT BURNS
of the time and when students talk, it’s usually off-task,” he

tells the assembled teachers.

One way to turn that around is to force students to “make

moves,” like a chess player or baseball hitter up at bat. Wilhelm stresses the need to “front-load”: activating students’

prior knowledge and building personal connections to the

text. By way of example, Wilhelm adopts the role of Ted

Turner as he introduces a short story called “The Chaser.” He

asks the teachers to pretend they’re CNN reporters being

offered a dangerous assignment.

He explains there’s a new pheromone-based perfume

available on the black market. If you wear it around someone

for an extended period, the person will become delirious and

think he’s in love with you. Then he asks which “journalist”

is brave enough to go undercover and try to purchase and use

the perfume. The question touches off a heated discussion

about the pitfalls and possible benefits associated with such

an assignment.

This segues into a role-play. “Students” talk to their best

friends about why they should or shouldn’t buy the perfume

for an upcoming date with someone whose affection they’re

trying to win.

Now it’s time to read the story, which revolves around a

man who buys a love potion, despite the potential for disastrous consequences. A series of questions helps the reader

gain entry, starting with the choice of the title. Students circle words in the text and write or draw their impressions in

the wide margin. In pairs, they talk about what they were

thinking as they read. Later, a volunteer comes to the front of

the room and represents the main character of the story.

Teams of “good angels” and “bad angels” offer arguments

urging him to buy the potion or resist the temptation.

In yet another extension, the group imagines what happens six weeks after the character uses the potion. The students write letters to the mysterious old man who sold the

mixture, describing the aftermath. Trading letters, partners

circle a phrase that seems especially intriguing or apt. To

everyone’s delight, Wilhelm combines the random phrases

into a surprisingly coherent chorale reading that’s performed

in front of the class. 

The time flies by and the demonstration ends. A short

story has been transformed from a half-dozen lifeless pages

into a modern morality play that probes the nature of love,

the qualities of a good relationship, and the unforeseen costs

of getting what you want: All topics guaranteed to spark the

interest of the typical hormonal teenager.

Trying it on for size

Sally Kroll, a language arts teacher at Vancouver’s Alki Middle School, knows firsthand how Wilhelm’s approach can

light up a class. Last year, she based her master’s thesis and

reading endorsement work on Wilhelm’s text, Action Strategies

for Deepening Comprehension (2002, Scholastic).

Kroll experimented with more than a dozen action strategies, keeping a detailed journal and asking her students to

reflect on the lessons as well. Among the favorites were the

“hot seat,” where one student adopts the persona of a character and fields questions from the entire class; “talk radio,”

where the teacher poses a question and students “call in” as

literary characters, newsmakers, pop culture heroes, or local

personalities; and role-plays, where students reenact scenes

from a book or predict what happens next. 

“It changed my teaching,” admits the five-year veteran,

who was able to observe Wilhelm modeling lessons in her

classroom. “I had never tried using drama before with my

kids. The positive results I saw and all the students’ comments sold me on it: I’m going to use it from now on.”

Kroll drew three conclusions from her research:

• Drama helps students make meaning and gain deeper

comprehension. It encourages them to listen to each other

in a different way and share their perspectives.

• Stepping into a role allows youngsters to understand how

characters feel and how situations might play out differently.

• Action strategies motivate and engage students, who are

able to express their excitement in their reflections.

Kroll’s colleague, Alki Literacy coach Rebecca Lofgren, has

also borrowed successfully from Wilhelm’s repertoire of

research-based strategies. As the new term begins, she

demonstrates a “think-aloud” in first-year teacher Ryan Coffey’s classroom.

Coffey has invited Lofgren to “change things up” in his

seventh-grade block classroom. “I have a strong writing background,” Coffey confides, “but she’s the reading expert. I

might as well take advantage of that resource.”

Lofgren starts with an “opinionaire,” asking the kids to

respond to 10 true or false statements about the behavior of

powerful readers. The exercise will help Coffey and Lofgren

construct a baseline of how the class regards reading.

Then, in a think-aloud, Lofgren shares a colorful newspaper article about the death of Steve Irwin, television’s “Crocodile Hunter.” She talks about how the author’s word choice

affected her emotionally and how Irwin makes her think of her

daredevil brother. Students chime in with their own observations and analyze the reading strategies that they’re using—

from visualization to prediction and clarification. 28 nwrel.org/nwedu/

At one of Wilhelm’s sessions, teachers pair up to discuss how they

connected to a reading assignment.
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 29

“I’m trying to unlock the key to your brain,” Lofgren tells

the class. “There are probably 15 things going on [when

you’re reading] that you’re not even aware of.”

Later she explains, “Wilhelm does a good job of unveiling

the mystery of reading for teachers and kids. I can’t teach the

same way after hearing him speak.”

Trying to reach everyone

At Ft. Vancouver High School, Kathy Wolfley faces the challenge of making reading palatable to a Benchmark Literacy

class: juniors who did not pass the 10th-grade WASL in reading, writing, or both. As the school’s literacy specialist, Worley teaches two classes and spends the remainder of her time

as a resource for other teachers—“the coalition of the willing,” she calls them.

In a sixth-period class filled predominantly with males,

Wilhelm’s research on literacy in the lives of young men

seems especially resonant. Wolfley tries to grab students’

attention with a role-play—posing as a documentary filmmaker who’s interviewing the author of a memoir. 

To model questioning during a writing exercise, she places

a ticket stub for “So You Think You Can Dance?” on the

overhead projector. One boy wants to know why she paid

$52 to see the show, while another asks what kind of dancing

the performance featured. “I’m going to use these questions

in writing in my journal about the event,” she tells the students, who have been practicing asking each other questions

about their own journal entries.

“This isn’t for sissies,” Wolfley dryly observes after the

end-of-school bell rings. Reaching these kids—both as a

classroom teacher and as a coach of other faculty—not only

takes mining strategies from multiple sources like Wilhelm,

Duane Baker, and Grant Wiggins and Jay McTigue (of

Understanding by Design fame). It also requires administrators

who are thoroughly versed in effective literacy practice and

the coach’s role in fostering it. “The more they understand it,

the more they support it,” she believes. “Otherwise, it just

becomes the latest thing to come across their desk.” 

Sherri Clark, a friend and codirector of the district’s Summer Literacy Academy, echoes Wolfley’s sentiments. “There

has to be leadership and recognition of what it [coaching]

looks like,” she says. “Principals must really understand what

that position is and how to support it.” She suggests that support should include incentives like release time for teachers

to debrief after coaching sessions.

Like Wolfley, Clark works in a high-poverty high school

where close to half the population qualifies for free or

reduced-price lunch. She’s found Wilhelm’s drama techniques helpful, but cautions that the teacher first needs to

build trust among students and between herself and the class.

Clark observed Wilhelm doing a dramatization in a standard sophomore English class, examining which characters in

Lord of the Flies were good, evil, or both. “I would say it was

quite successful. It really pushed [kids] to think deeply about

the characters. Jeff started with the kids’ own experiences but

took them way beyond their own lives into the life of the

novel,” she recalls. Another demonstration, with a group of

sophomores who read at the fourth– to seventh-grade level,

was not as successful. “The kids were much less comfortable

with what they were asked to do,” she says. 

All the ingredients

Venturing into another’s classroom and demonstrating lessons can have its pitfalls, but it’s one of the most powerful

ways to help change practice. That way, says Wilhelm, resistant teachers can’t claim “well, it won’t work with my kids.”

Wilhelm points out, “We go in and show them it can.”

What else is needed for a district to keep focused on literacy? “Vancouver has done a great job with this,” Wilhelm

asserts. “First of all, they actively say ‘we want every teacher

to be a teacher of literacy.’ Second, they provide assistance

through literacy coaches and me modeling it in the classroom. There’s administrative buy-in, an articulated vision,

and multiple levels of assistance: All the pieces are in place.”

The payoff comes with the arrival of the latest WASL

results: 10th-grade reading scores climbed to almost 80 percent proficiency—up a dozen points from last year—and

writing improved by eight points to 78 percent. Four years

ago, when the literacy push started, only half of the district’s

10th-graders were proficient readers.

“I feel good about the trajectory,” says Curriculum Director Curtis. “Four years’ worth of work is manifest in those

data, and I expect to sustain and increase the gain.”

With expert coaching, the district is well on its way. ■

Redefining Literacy for the Adolescent Learner:

Q&A With Jeffrey Wilhelm

ACTING OUT

BY THE NUMBERS: VANCOUVER SCHOOL DISTRICT

Enrollment: 22,508

Minority students 

(as percentage of total enrollment) 24.0%

Elementary free and reduced-price lunch 46.0%

ELL 7.6%

Special education 12.7%

Per pupil spending (including transportation): $7,546

2006 WASL pass rates (Reading):

4th grade 77.1% 

8th grade 69.8%

10th grade 79.8%

www.vansd.org
Getting on the 

SAME PAGE

From math and science to history,

teachers at one Oregon high school

embrace common literacy strategies.

Story by RHONDA BARTON • Photos by MOUNT BURNS

BEAVERTON, Oregon—Even before you walk into Beaverton

High School, you get the message that people here are serious about literacy. Plastered on the front door of the sprawling white building is an 18 x 24-inch poster with

literacy-linked “Schoolwide Learning Strategies (SWLS)”

smack in the middle.

Radiating out of the SWLS hub, like spokes of a wheel,

five strategies describe how the suburban school’s 2,000 students and 100 teachers approach learning: visualizing, questioning, summarizing, activating prior knowledge, and

developing vocabulary. Whether it’s a geometry class or one

studying the Russian revolution, special education students

or those taking Advanced Placement, everyone can expect to

use one or more of the strategies throughout the day. 

Literacy coach Alyson Miller—a petite brunette who

could be mistaken for a student—is on call to help teachers

infuse the strategies into their content areas. But, Miller is

more facilitator than dictator, more mentor than evaluator.

Like her fellow literacy coaches—assigned full time to each

of the district’s 15 middle and high schools—Miller’s job is

to provide staff development and work collaboratively with

other faculty to implement literacy techniques, curriculum,

and assessment.

Just two years after literacy coaching was introduced,

Beaverton High is seeing results: Reading scores on statewide

tests have jumped 12 percentage points with 67 percent of

10th-grade students now meeting or exceeding standards.

That’s 11 percent more than their peers across Oregon.

Identifying What Works

Beaverton High’s push toward boosting literacy is part of a

districtwide effort that looks slightly different in each school.

The district committed to hiring a full-time coach for every

school—supported by general fund dollars—as part of its

mission to increase student achievement in reading. At the

outset, all secondary coaches received common literacy training at least once a month and met regularly with content

experts to discuss reading needs in their subject areas. Now

that the district has some experience under its belt, it’s moving toward peer coaching and a train-the-trainers model.

“We’re trying to get our knowledge out there in as many ways

as possible,” says Janet Fortier, who was in charge of secondary coaches but now directs the district’s International 

Baccalaureate program. 

All of Beaverton’s coaches—both secondary and elementary—operate under the same job description. “We tell them

they should be coaching and not playing,” explains Sue

Robertson, former administrator of the program and now

Beaverton’s chief human resources officer. However, says

Robertson, each school is responsible for formulating its own

improvement plan and coaches tailor their work to those

plans and the assessments that inform them. 30 nwrel.org/nwedu/
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 31

Coach Alyson Miller enjoys a lighter moment with students brushing up on reading

comprehension during a study hall period.
32 nwrel.org/nwedu/

In a crowded classroom of rambunctious ninth-graders, Tony Hynes

teaches social studies. But, he also

recognizes the role that literacy

instruction plays. “It has to be my job

because if they don’t understand the

vocabulary, they don’t understand the

content,” he admits. “It’s the building

block of seeing the knowledge.”

At the beginning of the period,

Hynes uses a technique called vocabulary front-loading that Miller

showed him. On the chalkboard he

writes four to eight words that are difficult or critical to the meaning of the

lesson. After giving the definitions, he

asks the class to rephrase them in a

“student-friendly” way and then draw

a picture to symbolize each word.

Whenever possible, Hynes tries to tie

the vocabulary to situations in his students’ lives. “What does it mean to

have a bilateral agreement?” he asks.

“I’ve given you the word in an international political context, but what

about when you and your parents are

deciding whether you should be

grounded?”

Besides words that

are specific to his

subject, Hynes pulls

out vocabulary that

students are likely to

encounter in other

classes. And, he says

the strategy definitely

is working. “If I give

them an assessment

on that particular concept, I often see the

words given back to

me in their writing,”

he says. “Days later, I might ask them

what that word means and basically

they’ll give it back to me again.”

Teaming up with Miller, Hynes

added another dimension to a lesson

on trench warfare. “Instead of showing a video, I had Alyson come in and

we read poetry actually written by

soldiers in the trenches,” he relates.

The class jotted down powerful

words from the readings and then

created their own poems. “It was

great; the students still talk about it!”

Hynes exclaims.

Another literacy

strategy that Hynes

adopted is the read

aloud, think aloud,

where the teacher

shares his questions

and understanding

of a passage as he’s

reading it—or even

memories it evokes.

The approach makes

sense to Hynes

because of his own

struggles as a student. “I came from more of an oral

culture where reading wasn’t pushed

in my home,” the native New Zealander confesses. “I didn’t have the discourse, I didn’t understand a lot of

the vocabulary, and I couldn’t make

the connections in the reading. I used

to read the first paragraph and I

couldn’t remember at the end of it

what it was about.” Hynes says that by

asking questions as a reader and making personal connections, “the reading has context then ... it’s not just

something out there.”

In addition to support from the district, Beaverton High

was able to tap into another resource: a small learning community grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Using

SLC funds, Miller and five other members of the school’s literacy team researched what was working in similar-sized

high schools and ultimately paid a visit to Hoover High in

San Diego. They took away an important lesson: “If we can

be more consistent from one class to another in our practice

and our expectations about things like note taking, for example, then students are that much more likely to succeed,” says

Miller.

The team returned home and set about developing a set of

proven practices that could be used in art classes as easily as

in language arts. “We called them learning strategies instead

of literacy ones because they’re really processing strategies:

things we can do in our brains to process information and

own it over time,” notes Miller. The team presented 15

strategies to the full staff, which whittled the list down to the

top five. Now, the challenge was to translate them from paper

into practice.

TWO ACTIVITIES THAT MAKE LITERACY FUN

Word of the Week

Whether it’s effervescent, sycophant, or rotund,

there’s a different word highlighted each week.

Students invent their own definitions that are

posted in the halls and read over the intercom.

Rewards like candy are given to students with the

most creative entries that use the word correctly.

What Are You Reading?

Colorful and amusing posters in the hallways feature students and staff with comments about their

current favorite books. Photography students created the posters as an independent study project,

learning Photoshop® in the process. 

Finding Poetry in Social Studies
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 33

Using graphic organizers as an

instructional tool is as applicable in

math as it is in science. David Wagenblast’s geometry students fill in the

blanks on a “name that formula”

matrix that gives clues like pictures,

the name of a shape, or the area equation. The organizer helps students

separate out key vocabulary and common or different characteristics of the

shapes. “A lot of geometry is getting

kids to visualize what you’re talking

about,” says Wagenblast, “so this is a

different way of looking at it.”

Rather than assume that students

understand mathematical terms,

Wagenblast throws in vocabulary lessons that are anything but dull.

Inspired by the popular game

“Taboo,” he came up with stacks of

little white cards bearing words like

“angle bisector” on one side. A student tries to guess the word while his

partner gives hints that

can’t include taboo

words printed on the

card’s flip side (in this

case, “degree,” “divide,”

or “same”). “Everyone is

doing it in their own

groups at the same

time—it’s you and your

partner against another

pair—and they’re highly

engaged because they’re

playing a game,” Wagenblast reports.

With Miller’s help,

Wagenblast also turned geometric

proofs into a hands-on activity. Using

flash cards, teams of students try to

match the properties associated with

different formulas. “Alyson helped

me figure out what literacy we want

to get out of this exercise,” says

Wagenblast. “What’s the objective we

want these kids to

learn? By using

these techniques, I

don’t have to spend

20 minutes doing a

boring lecture and

the kids really pick

up [the concept].”

Wagenblast has

found that by collaborating with a literacy coach he gets

ideas on how to

present complicated

mathematical principles in a format that kids can understand. He points out that someone

like Miller comes at the problem with

a fresh perspective: While another

math teacher might share a different

way to teach angles, it won’t necessarily be as effective or engaging. 

Down a sloping corridor in the science wing, biology teacher Megan

McLain also puts literacy strategies to

work. She was puzzling over how to

introduce a unit on evolution when

she attended one of Miller’s inservice

sessions on activating prior knowledge—a prereading technique. “I got

excited and started brainstorming

how to apply that to evolution, which

is something so many people have

misconceptions about,” she said. “I

really needed to dive into the subject

in a way that was going to get students

thinking.”

McLain decided to use anticipation/reaction guides: a type of graphic

organizer that helps students recall

what they know or believe about a

subject or text before studying it. Students then revisit their initial

responses during and after the lesson.

In the case of a sensitive issue like

evolution, McLain was able to

acknowledge

the diversity of

opinions and

explore them in

the context of

sound scientific

investigation. “I

think getting

their opinions

out there and

having a voice helps kids compare

ideas and be more open-minded

about what they’re learning,” she says.

McLain also turned to graphic

organizers in an Advanced Placement

unit on photosynthesis where students “need to know how to dig into

a complicated, college-level text and

get out the information.” Guided by

three major questions on photosynthesis supplied by the College Board

(which is responsible for AP tests),

the students broke down everything

they had to know to answer the first

question. Together,

they sifted through

the textbook and

found all the

needed tables and

figures. Then, students created their

own graphic organizers for the next

two questions and

helped each other fill in the pertinent

information. McLain says the technique gave her “a lot of bang for the

buck”: Not only did students find the

photosynthesis unit more interesting

and easier to understand, but they

had less trouble delving into other

chapters of the book. McLain says she

no longer feels she has to “regurgitate” all the information because students are better equipped to find it

themselves.

Mixing Geometry and Graphic Organizers

Applying Prereading to Biology

GETTING ON THE SAME PAGE
34 nwrel.org/nwedu/

David Nieslanik has his hands full:

Half his day is spent as Beaverton

High’s activities director and the

other half finds him teaching European History to 108 Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate

students. Nieslanik says the five

schoolwide strategies “give us a

focused way of connecting content to

learning.” Students see the same

strategies in every classroom, which

not only provides continuity but also

promotes equity. “It changes the

dynamic in the building,” says Nieslanik. “If a kid is special ed or ELL

versus TAG or AP or even an average

student, they all have the same opportunity to succeed across the curriculum. Granted, my content is a lot

more difficult than in other 10thgrade social studies classrooms, but

the strategy is the same and students

see they’re learning to read content at

a deeper level.” 

Focusing on the strategy of summarizing, Nieslanik encourages his

students to use structured note taking

like the Cornell method. In Cornell

Note Taking, the student divides a

page into two columns and writes key

words or questions in one column

and definitions or answers in the

other. The student recites, reflects on,

and reviews the notes at a later point

and writes a summary of each page.

To track the impact of the method,

Nieslanik did an informal study comparing test results for his students who

used Cornell Note Taking with those

who used a more traditional approach.

In three quizzes and one unit test,

scores were consistently higher for

students using the Cornell method

than for “traditional” notetakers.

Nieslanik cautions that his study wasn’t scientific, but adds that the results

certainly were “interesting.”

Melissa Allen’s language arts classroom is abuzz with energy and excitement. The first-year teacher has

divided the class into literature circles,

a group discussion technique that

incorporates comprehension strategies

such as predicting, summarizing, and

visualizing. Five weeks ago, Allen

assigned these 35 juniors and seniors

the World War II story, The Long Walk:

The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, by

Slavomir Rawicz. It was up to each

group to agree on a reading schedule

and take on individual roles.

In one tight knot, a half-dozen students are busily wrapping up their

work. Annie explains her job as discussion director: “I make up the questions we talk about, like when this

happened in the book, how did you

feel?” The “literacy luminary,” Edsel,

says he finds passages in the book that

are special: “I look for something that

really appeals to me.” Meanwhile,

Amanda, the illustrator, is putting the

finishing touches on a drawing of a

house with two people in a wooded

setting. She chose this scene from the

book because it’s one of hope. Other

students act as vocabulary “police” and

“connectors,” pulling the threads of

the story together.

Edsel is a fan of the circle approach.

“We pressure each other into actually

reading because we have to turn in a

sheet after each discussion,” he says.

Annie adds, “When you talk about the

story in a small group you can express

your views more easily.” 

Allen, who earned her master’s

degree a year ago, says using techniques like questioning and activating

prior knowledge come easily to her.

“It’s natural for language arts teachers

to do this, but the strategies really

apply across the board,” she thinks.

“There’s that blanket stereotype that

LA teachers teach literacy and others

teach everything else, but it doesn’t

have to be that way.”

Fine-Tuning Note Taking in History

Turning Kids on to Literature

BY THE NUMBERS: 

BEAVERTON HIGH SCHOOL

Enrollment: 2,076 students

102 teachers (FTE)

Student race/ethnicity:

White 69.7%

Hispanic 16.7%

African American 3.8%

Asian/Pacific Islander 8.9%

American Indian/ .9%

Alaska Native

Free and 24.6%

reduced-price lunch

ESL 10.1%

Special education 11.1%

Mobility 40.0%

www.beavton.k12.or.us/home/
Measuring Success

As the school year comes to a close, Beaverton High’s literacy

team gathers to reflect on whether the five learning strategies

are really taking root. Have team members succeeded in convincing colleagues and students that literacy should be front

and center? The answer is a resounding “yes.”

Special education teacher Linda Keil is excited that “the

strategies are becoming standard operating procedure. Staff

and teachers are using the same language and the kids are

able to explain why we’re doing this,” she says. Wendy

Orloff, an ESL teacher, observes that students now incorporate the strategies spontaneously. “If they’re reading a passage, they’ll ask the three levels of questions on their own.”

Jared Storts, who teaches math, tells the group, “I had a

big epiphany about assessment and it came directly from our

work on the strategies. In math, we put 75–80 percent of our

emphasis on the test, but by focusing on the strategies I 

realized we have to measure how we get there. It’s like a saying I saw that gave me pause: You don’t make a hog fatter by

weighing it. ... If you wait until the test, it’s too late!”

Vice Principal Claudia Ruff has the last word. She points

out that reading scores have improved tremendously since

Beaverton adopted its literacy program. She’s also seen a

heightened sense of community and greater cooperation.

“Students realize we’re all doing these strategies together,”

she remarks.

There may be 2,000 students, 100 teachers, and school

traditions that stretch back more than a century. But, five

strategies have helped everyone at Beaverton High get on the

same page and push to improve literacy. ■

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 35

GETTING ON THE SAME PAGE

Teaching Everyone To Go Deeper

While coach Miller’s primary focus

is teaching teachers, she also

works—either individually or in

small groups—with students who

are referred by their teachers. Ryan,

Codi, and Nathan are three freshmen who are taking advantage of this

intensive support once a week during their study hall period. Today,

Adrian Harvie, a student teacher

from Pacific University, leads them

in a leveled questioning activity under

Miller’s watchful eye.

The assignment is to create questions of increasing difficulty about a

12-line portion of Xenophon’s Conversations of Socrates. It’s the kind of

text you’d expect college students to

blanch at, but the boys handle it with

both ease and pride. In turn, each

one asks a Level I question about a

basic fact and a Level II question that

requires the reader to make inferences. Level III questions tie the text

to personal experience. For example,

Nathan poses the difficult question:

What actions do you consider to be

involuntary? Codi asks if it’s easier

or harder to think on your own. And

Ryan wants to know what the advantage is of questioning society.

“This makes you think harder

about your reading,” says Nathan.

“When we first read the article I

didn’t necessarily understand it, but

by the time I did all my questions, I

did.” Codi says leveled questioning

has definitely helped him tackle Lord

of the Flies in his language arts class

and Ryan brags that he “rocked” a

Shakespeare assignment where he

had to pick out quotes and rewrite

them in modern-day English.

Harvie, who will complete his

degree in six months and return

home to Australia, says practicing literacy strategies has been “huge” for

him. “As a future social studies

teacher, I see how well it can work if

initiated well,” he remarks. “In the

beginning, these guys weren’t asking

in-depth questions,

but now they are—

which shows that

they’re thinking more

about the text and

what it means. The

experience has shown

me that if I model

what I’m looking for

and then shift the

questioning to my

students, they can take

on that responsibility.”
LESSONS

FOR A Lifetime

A widely used instructional model turns teachers into metacognitive coaches. 
KALISPELL, Montana—In the glacier country of northwestern

Montana, what began as one school’s attempt to improve reading comprehension across the curriculum has become a powerful instructional model that is spreading around the globe.

Almost three decades ago, a small group of innovators

founded Project CRISS (CReating Independence through

Student-owned Strategies) to address teacher and administrative concerns about the lack of student reading proficiency

at Flathead High School. They started with a question: How

can we improve student reading comprehension, deliver

content, and provide direct instruction in proven learning

strategies, all at the same time? 

Today, their answers and the model developed to implement them are used by more than 60,000 teachers in 33

states, Europe, and the Middle East. 

A visit to the idyllic setting of the Montana Academy and to

the crowded classrooms of Kalispell Junior High reveals how

this approach to learning and instruction works on different

levels and how it’s making a difference in students’ lives.

More Than a Toolkit 

For the beginner, Project CRISS can be hard to pin down. Is

it a broad philosophy of learning or a practical, classroombased “toolkit” for teachers? A set of hands-on learning

strategies for students or a guide to lifelong learning? Teachers often ask, “Aren’t these ideas available elsewhere?”

Lynn Havens, the current director of Project CRISS and

one of the original developers, acknowledges that the model

does not reinvent the wheel. “The philosophy and principles

behind the project are not new and they’re not unique to us,”

she says. “They’re drawn from many different places and

many different fields. It’s information that’s out there and that

a really good teacher might find on her own. What we’ve done

is put it all together in one place and given it a well-defined

philosophical base and a framework for practical application.”

As the name implies, empowering students is at the heart

of that philosophy. “Our approach to learning is about teaching students how to take charge of their own learning and

their own lives,” says Carol Santa, the primary developer and

founder of Project CRISS. “We teach students how to ask

questions; how to think about what they’re learning and how

they’re learning; and how they can transfer those skills to

another subject or problem, be it academic or personal. A lot

of programs give lip service to lifelong learning; Project

CRISS is about giving students the actual skills and strategies

to make it a reality.” 

Central to the Project CRISS approach is the concept of

metacognition, or put simply: thinking about how we think.

“Students who are metacognitive have learned to examine

their own learning,” explains Havens. “They can check their

own comprehension. They know whether they have understood something, and if they haven’t, they know how to use

several different strategies in order to gain that understanding.”

Direct teacher-to-student instruction of both metacognitive and reading comprehension strategies—in the classroom,

Story by BRACKEN REED, photos by PAM VOTH

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 37
while delivering content—is the instructional foundation of

Project CRISS. This follows a clear framework. First, the

teacher explains a given strategy—why it’s important and how

it can be used. Second, teachers model that strategy both by

using it in front of students and by generally thinking out loud

as they do so. Third, there is guided practice, in which students begin to use the strategy with direct teacher oversight.

And fourth, students independently apply the strategy. By the

time students have finished this process, the new strategy has

been absorbed on several levels. The likelihood of students

remembering and using the strategy to learn subsequent content, on their own, is dramatically improved.

While this framework is the foundation of the model, it

isn’t prescriptive. “Our approach is really about respecting

the intelligence and individuality of the student and of the

teacher,” says Santa. “And part of that is letting each individual find out what works best within the overall context. The

framework is a guide, not a set of rules.” 

That flexibility is also built into Project CRISS training,

says Havens. “We provide a strong professional development

model, but we also expect that teachers will adapt the process

to fit their own needs. We say to teachers: learn, practice,

combine, adapt.”

How teachers combine and adapt the framework, processes, and strategies of Project CRISS depends on the style

and experience of the teacher, and also on the school and 

district environment in which they teach. 

Close to Home

As the birthplace of Project CRISS, the Kalispell School District has a multitude of classroom teachers—at all grade levels—

who incorporate the model into daily practice. “CRISS is really

districtwide in Kalispell,” says Havens. “You see its effect in a lot

of classrooms, even though it’s not always mentioned by name.

In some ways it’s become part of the general climate.”

Jeannie Sherlock, a veteran social studies teacher at

Kalispell Junior High, has used CRISS principles and strategies nearly her entire career. On a visit to her eighth-grade

social studies classroom in early May, less than a month

before her retirement, both the student-centered, metacognitive approach and the practical strategies of CRISS were on

display. As a soft spring rain brushed her classroom’s windows, Sherlock led her students through a unit on AIDS in

South Africa that combined content and learning strategies in

unmistakable CRISS fashion. 

“She’s picked a current event topic that is relevant to real

life,” observes Havens, sitting unobtrusively in the back of the

room. “That’s just good teaching, and it’s an important part of

CRISS. We always want to make it clear why we’re asking students to learn something and how it relates to their lives.”

Sherlock’s introduction to the lesson is another CRISS

principle in action: Before they even start the reading, students know what they will be learning about, how it relates

to prior lessons, and the process and tools they’ll use to 

discuss it. “As we go

through this, I want you to

think about how this

process helps you learn,”

Sherlock says. “How do the

handouts help you organize the information? How does the

group discussion help focus your thoughts?” 

“She’s really setting it out for them,” says Havens. “She’s

setting them up for success, because they know what the purpose is, what they’re trying to learn, and what they’re going

to use to learn it. She’s also making it explicit that they’re

going to talk about the learning process as they go along.”

For this unit, that process looks like this: Sherlock presents

the subject using multiple tools—a wall map, a world atlas, a

PowerPoint presentation on AIDS data—and then gives students a four-page article called “South Africa’s Struggle With

AIDS,” by the popular young adult author Laura McClure.

Sherlock draws their attention to each part of the publication—the title, photos, captions, length—and then has individual students read sections aloud. Throughout the reading,

she interrupts to draw attention to specific vocabulary words

(“What is stigma?” she asks, and students look to their dictionaries), and to point out significant details (“Six hundred

people die a day,” she says. “Can you imagine that?”)

After the group reading, Sherlock gives students a “Problem-Solution Frame” handout. “The purpose of this is to

focus your discussion,” she tells them. “This is one way to

organize your thoughts when you read something—categorize the information you read into problems, effects, causes,

and possible solutions.” 

Students split into groups of three or four and repeat the

reading, quietly reading one or two paragraphs. As the students read, discuss, and complete the Problem-Solution

Frame, Sherlock walks around the classroom, observing and 38 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Top: A calm, distraction-free

environment and a beautiful

setting are key ingredients in the

Montana Academy approach to

living and learning.

Right: A metacognitive approach

to teaching is common ground for

all Montana Academy staff. 

Bottom: Kalispell Junior High

teacher Jeannie Sherlock listens in

as students takes turns rereading

the text.
directing students to details in the reading, but refusing to

offer answers. “With CRISS, the teacher really serves as a

coach,” say Havens, “guiding his or her students in ways to

effectively learn. The idea of literacy coaches has become

very popular in recent years and many districts have chosen

to train their coaches as CRISS-certified trainers. The end

result is that CRISS literacy coaches help their teachers

incorporate the CRISS principles and strategies into their

instructional plans and then, the CRISS teachers help their

students incorporate CRISS into their daily learning—two

levels of literacy coaching.”

After each team has filled out the frame, Sherlock leads

the class in a group discussion. Each team has the opportunity to report out findings, and together they complete the

questions with remarkably sophisticated answers. 

Sherlock ends the lesson with another fundamental

CRISS practice. “I have some questions for you,” she says.

“Did this process help you learn about AIDS? What helped

you? Did the frame help? Did you learn from each other’s

responses?” 

“This is called a ‘process conference,’” Havens points out.

“She’s asking them to really think about their own learning and

check their own comprehension. Do they understand what

they read? Why? What helped them understand it? The more

they’re aware of that, the more they can transfer those skills to

the next subject.”

The power of CRISS is apparent in the students’ enthusiastic responses. Not only have they learned about something relevant to their lives, they’ve learned something even

more important—that they have skills and the ability to drive

their own learning. They’re in charge. 

Off the Beaten Path

Although the majority of schools that use Project CRISS are

public schools, the model is easily adapted to many different

settings. Not so far away from Kalispell Junior High, another

group of students is gaining the same skills and learning the

same powerful lesson of self-empowerment. 

At the Montana Academy—a private, coeducational,

boarding school for troubled teens, ages 14 to 18—learning

that lesson can be a matter of life and death. 

LESSONS FOR A LIFETIME

Carol Santa started the academy in 1998 with her husband

John, a clinical psychologist and former university professor.

Another couple, John and Rosemary McKinnon, also were

founders. Carol Santa serves as the director of education,

which in this case is a combination of principal and resident

visionary. For Santa, the academy is the fulfillment of a careerlong dream, and in many ways, the ultimate expression of her

educational philosophy.

The academy’s main campus houses 70 students from all

over the United States. An inescapable fact—for a private

boarding school with nine therapists on staff—is that the students are, as one teacher puts it, “from the top 10 percent of

wealth in the country.” On the surface, the academy can feel

like an extended summer camp for the extremely privileged,

complete with horseback riding, fly fishing, and winter skiing. But these students are not only atypically wealthy, they

are also highly intelligent, and—when they arrive—highly

dysfunctional. 

As Santa says, “Many of these kids have been out of school

for quite a while—a year, sometimes more. And many of

them had completely shut down. They wouldn’t get out of

bed, or maybe they got into drugs, or they were suicidal. A lot

of them have already been through several other programs,

and a lot of therapy.”

Many of the students also arrive heavily medicated, with

multiple diagnoses—depression, bipolar, ADHD, OCD,

addiction—and case folders a foot thick. But from the beginning, Santa’s approach is unorthodox. “To be honest, I don’t

pay too much attention to their case files. In a setting like

ours, most students, such as those classified with ADHD or

learning disabilities, begin to succeed in school. And we also

try to get most students off medications as soon as possible.”

For most students, Santa says, a structured, supportive

environment, and the calm, quiet pace of life on the ranch

can do wonders. “We try to slow them down, slow everything

down: no TV, no cell phones, no iPods, no Internet except for

supervised use in the library. Kids who are troubled need a lot

of structure and a minimum of distractions. Once you get

them into a structured, supportive environment and away

from all those distractions, kids begin to grow up and realize

that they can become successful young adults. We provide a

safe place for students to mature.”

For teachers, the conditions are a public school teacher’s

dream: small class sizes (typically a dozen or less), adequate

materials and equipment, weekly staff meetings, a collaborative

atmosphere, frequent opportunities for professional development, and full administrative support and involvement.

While Santa doesn’t push the formal Project CRISS

framework or terminology at the academy, its philosophy,

principles, and practices permeate the school. Walk into any

classroom and you’ll see teachers merging content with the

direct instruction of comprehension and learning strategies.

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 39
Metacognition is part of the common vocabulary of all staff

and students. 

Learning How To Learn

In Jack Cesarone’s science classroom, his grasp of Project

CRISS principles and techniques is unmistakable. “We need

to get you out of the habit of rote memorization,” Cesarone

tells his afternoon class as he starts the day’s lesson. Far from

the “memorize it long enough to regurgitate it on a test”

approach to teaching and learning, Cesarone challenges his

students to dig deeper. And he gives them the skills to do it.

“The last time we were here we went through eight slides

and I saw people with four pages of notes,” he says. “How is

that going to work? How much of that do you think you’re

going to remember?”

During the next 70 minutes, Cesarone peppers his students with similar questions that repeatedly draw their attention to the dual purpose of the lesson: to learn about cell

biology, but also to explore effective ways to take notes and

organize information. 

As Cesarone moves through a series of overhead transparencies, he stops frequently to ask students how the new

information relates to what they’ve already covered and how

they might organize it in their notes. “Have you tried putting

things into an equation?” he asks at one point, and then 

models the technique. 

In an echo of Sherlock’s public school class, Cesarone also

ends his class period with a process conference. “What have

we learned?” he asks, as he turns off the projector. When a

student tentatively says “note taking,” Cesarone asks the class

to look at their notes again. “See the difference?” he says.

“Can you see how much easier it’s going to be to remember

that, instead of copying down the information from a slide

word for word?”

Outside of the classroom, Cesarone reflects on the

metacognitive approach. “I can follow the students’ progress

by the kinds of questions they ask,” he says. “When they first

get here they say really general, passive things, like ‘How do

I do this?’ But by the end they’re asking very specific questions. You start to see them building their confidence and 

taking responsibility for their own learning.”

For Carol Santa, the process of creating independent, active

learners and healthy, confident human beings is inseparable,

whether it’s at the academy or in a public school setting.

“Learning content and acquiring personal interaction skills

go together,” says Santa. “They’re not isolated. The fact that

we try to isolate them in most school settings is at the root of

the problem. When you’re empowering a student as a

learner—when you’re giving them the knowledge and skills

to take charge of their own learning—then you’re also

empowering them as human beings.” 

For Lizzie, an 18-year-old student about to graduate from

the academy and make the transition back into the larger

world, the effect of such an approach couldn’t be clearer, or

more important. “I was sent here because I didn’t really want

to live anymore,” she says matter-of-factly. “And now I not

only want to live—I’m happy. I have goals. I have a future. I

can get up in the morning and look forward with confidence.

Everybody could benefit from this place.”

While only a small group of students will ever experience

the full benefits of the Montana Academy, the Project CRISS

model is taking the same philosophy and approach into

mainstream classrooms around the country and the world. ■

For more on Project CRISS, see www.projectcriss.com.

IMPROVING THE RESEARCH BASE

Project CRISS is at the center of a major experimental

research study being conducted by the Northwest Regional

Educational Laboratory. The five-year study is funded by the

Institute of Education Sciences (IES) as part of NWREL’s

regional educational laboratory contract. During the

2006–2007 pilot year, NWREL will recruit high schools in the

region to participate in the full-scale, randomized study that

begins in 2007–2008. 

The focus of the study is the effectiveness of Project

CRISS on the reading comprehension and achievement of

ninth-grade students. Seventeen small, rural high schools in

Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and Washington will receive Project CRISS training for a two-year period, while 17 other high

schools with similar demographics will serve as the control

group. NWREL will offer the control schools CRISS training

during the last two years of the grant. All 34 schools will be

chosen to represent rural schools in the region.

“We were attracted to Project CRISS because it already had

a promising research base, but hadn’t yet had the opportunity

to be rigorously tested,” says Jacqueline Raphael, a NWREL

senior program advisor. “Another factor is it’s a very promising

model that deals with adolescent literacy—a huge area of need

for many schools around the country—as well as a model that’s

been regionally developed.”

The study will be completed at the end of the 2010–2011

school year. Jim Kushman, the director of the study, says the

results will be nationally disseminated. “IES has plans to distribute the study results through its Regional Laboratory Network Web site (http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/). This is

a study that has the potential to provide information that is

both practical and scientifically based in an area of high need.”

40 nwrel.org/nwedu/
VOICES

A Trainer’s Voice: Revisiting Your Literacy Coaching Program By Kathy Egawa

Based in Seattle, Washington, Kathy

Egawa works as a consultant with literacy coaches and coaching leaders

around the United States. She is a

founding member of the NCTE/IRA

National Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse Advisory Board.

Literacy achievement is an ongoing concern, and literacy coaching has played an

increasingly prominent role over the last

decade in addressing this challenge.

Schools that launched coaching early in

the history of this phenomenon began

with more enthusiasm than research;

indeed, there still remains little direct

evidence of literacy coaching’s ultimate

intended impact—increased student

achievement. These early programs

relied on the work of Showers (1985),

Showers and Joyce (1996), and Costa

and Garmston (2002).

A decade later our field has the

advantage of a growing body of professional literature and accumulating

experience from coaching leaders, as

well as insights from those who have

stepped back to conceptualize coaching

practices. I share some of that information here, with the hope that those

planning to implement literacy coaching, or those reviewing programs

already in existence, can think more

carefully about the choices they make

and the results of those choices. 

REVISIT PURPOSE AND ROLES

In the best of all worlds, literacy

coaches begin their work with a clear

job description (Bacevich & Salinger,

2006), as well as an understanding of

the larger purpose of the district’s

coaching program. Undoubtedly

coaches who begin this way have the

best chance for success. 

While the activities traditionally

involved in literacy coaching are readily

apparent—conversation, reflection,

data analysis, goal setting, demonstration, observation, coaching dialogue, to

name several—why and to what end

coaches are involved in these activities

is not always clear (Toll, 2006). 

Showers and Joyce (1996) offer the

first conceptualization of coaching

models, what they distinguish as expert

models and guided models. Expert

models focus on program implementation with others setting the goals that

teachers are asked to put into practice.

Guided models, in contrast, focus on

deepening teacher understandings and

supporting teachers as they incorporate

those into their teaching. Coaching

within each model calls for different

emphases and different coach/teacher

relationships (Robinson, Egawa, Riddle Buly, & Coskie, 2005).

Coaching leader and coach of

coaches, Cathy Toll, offers another

conceptualization (in press); at its simplest, she distinguishes the primary

goals of coaching as intervening, leading,

or partnering. Each is based on a different belief about the causes of our literacy challenges and how best to address

them. 

REVISIT WHO IS COACHED AND WHY

Two new coaches that I met at a summer institute face the challenge of

coaching teachers in multiple schools.

Clearly, if they are to have an impact,

each needs a plan about who will be

coached and why.

It is not uncommon for those facing

such daunting work to “go with the

goers,” the teachers who express an

interest in working with the coach.

Other coaches are asked to work with

“struggling” teachers, a sure obstacle

when the next round of participants is

solicited. Coaches charged with monitoring the fidelity of program implementation should work with all staff

members using the program or practices. Beyond these, educators may not

have considered other options for the

focus of coaching. Here are several:

When the work of literacy coaches is

helping teachers identify and solve

problems—work of concern to all

teachers—cohorts can be identified by

data needs, i.e. third-grade teachers

preparing students for the fourth-grade

reading test or science teachers exploring the development of content vocabulary, and all teachers within each

cohort then partner with the coach.

This expectation—that teaching is

about thinking through one’s practice

and that coaches support that thinking—removes many of the obstacles.

Boston Public Schools refined this

expectation one step further. During

the eight-year evolution of their coaching program, formerly school-based

coaches are now district based and

assigned based on student population

to eight-week coaching cycles. Known

as CLC cycles, teachers may actually

spend less time with a coach, but all

involved report increased involvement

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 41
and change (Kral, 2006). At the heart of

the work is data-based cohort selection, teacher identification of the work

focus with coaches highlighting district

goals, and cohorts often taking up the

shared inquiry beyond the eight-week

cycle.

Another example comes from

Bellingham (Washington) where a

decadelong commitment to coaching is

in place throughout the district. All

professional staff is coached, including

the administration. Even the experienced coaching leaders work with

coaches to refine their work. (For more

details, see www.ncte.org/collections/

literacycoach/resources/118029.htm.)

REVISIT THE FOCUS OF 

LITERACY COACHING

Two common emphases of literacy

coaching are the implementation of an

instructional program or the addition

of reading strategies, yet frequently

neither is enough to influence achievement. Additional influences include

self-efficacy (the confidence that one

has the capacity to produce a desired

behavior) and remediation (refashioning of curricular and instructional conditions to include multiple forms of

media) to successfully engage “at-risk”

students (Alvermann, 2001; Luke &

Elkins, 2000). In addition, Tatum

(2005) argues that addressing cultural

relevance is necessary to achieve more

effective literacy instruction.

Further, I urge literacy coaches to

coach beyond strategies by helping

teachers infuse music, visual arts, and

multimedia into curricular learning

experiences. With this approach, teachers help students engage with topics

through experiences that support their

reading and help them explore new

concepts through the complex literacies available in the larger culture

(Albers & Egawa, 2004, in press).

Toll (in press) describes literacy

coaching as a teacher-affirming activity

in which one effectively coaches a variety of teachers in a variety of situations,

including some challenging ones, by

maintaining an emphasis on strengths

and an attitude that respects the worth

and dignity of all educators. I invite

you and your colleagues to use the

experiences of others to revisit your

coaching decisions today. ■

REFERENCES

Albers, P., & Egawa, K. (2004). Can’t

sing the same song twice: Designing multimodal, inquiry-based curriculum.

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Hawaii Council of Teachers of English and Hawaii

Association of School Librarians,

Oahu, HI.

Albers, P., & Egawa, K. (in press). Project Multimedia: Designing interdisciplinary curricula in a digital age.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Alvermann, D. (2001). Effective literacy

instruction for adolescents. Executive

summary and paper commissioned

by the National Reading Conference. Chicago, IL: National Reading

Conference.

Bacevich, A., & Salinger, T. (2006).

Lessons and recommendations from the

Alabama Reading Initiative: Sustaining

focus on secondary reading. Washington, DC: American Institutes for

Research.

Costa, A., & Garmston, R. (2002). Cognitive Coaching: A foundation for

Renaissance schools. Norwood, MA:

Christopher-Gordon.

Kral, C. (with Egawa, K., & Toll, C.)

(2006). Keys for successful literacy coaching at the secondary level. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the

International Reading Association,

Chicago, IL.

Luke, A., & Elkins, J. (2000). Re/mediating adolescent literacies. Journal of

Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 43,

396–398.

Robinson, L., Egawa, K., Riddle Buly,

M., & Coskie, T. (2005). FAQs

about literacy coaching. Voices from

the Middle, 13(1), 66–67.

Showers, B. (1985). Teachers coaching

teachers. Educational Leadership,

53(6), 12–16.

Showers, B., & Joyce, B. (1996). The

evolution of peer coaching. Educational Leadership, 53(6), 12–16.

Tatum, A. (2005). Teaching reading to

black adolescent males: Closing the

achievement gap. Portland, ME: 

Stenhouse.

Toll, C.A. (2006). The literacy coach’s desk

reference: Processes and perspectives for

effective coaching. Urbana, IL:

National Council of Teachers of

English.

Toll, C.A. (in press). Lenses on coaching:

Conceptualizations, functions, and outcomes. Norwood, MA: ChristopherGordon.

VOICES

42 nwrel.org/nwedu/
RESEARCH BRIEF

Connecting Coaching and Improved Literacy By Theresa Deussen and Marsha Riddle Buly

While students face more and more complicated texts as they

advance through school, the fact is they receive little if any

reading instruction past the fourth grade. The unfortunate

consequence is reflected in national literacy statistics: More

than eight million U.S. students in grades 4–12 are struggling

readers. According to the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), fewer than a third of our country’s eighth-graders read at or above grade level (Perie, Grigg,

& Donahue, 2005). The research also shows that students

who leave third grade as struggling readers continue to have

difficulties reading when they reach high school.

In an attempt to address the problem, an increasing number of states and districts are turning to literacy coaches at

both the elementary and secondary levels. Some are doing so

as part of their participation in federal programs such as

Reading First, which require grantee schools to provide

coaches to support their K–3 teachers (U.S. Department of

Education, 2002). Others are encouraged by research on the

importance of ongoing, job-embedded professional development for teachers; they see literacy coaches as logical

providers of such training.

Literacy or reading coaches are typically experienced,

effective teachers who step out of the classroom and into the

role of supporting or mentoring other teachers to strengthen

their reading instruction. Coaching can fulfill many of the

standards established by the National Staff Development

Council (2001). The council recommends that professional

development include: 

• The organization of educators into “learning communities” that have clear goals, consistent with school and 

district goals

• Effective leadership to support “continuous instructional

improvement”

• The application of research to school and classroom

strategies and decision making

• Support for teacher collaboration

While there is little scientific evidence that specifically

addresses the impact of literacy coaches, substantial research

suggests that coaching can be an effective means of strengthening teachers’ instruction. Early work by Showers and Joyce

(1996) found that teachers were more likely to adopt and

“own” new practices and strategies when they had coaching

and in-class feedback to accompany their professional development. Neufeld and Roper (2003) report that teachers

whose professional development includes coaching were

more likely to try out the new ideas they learned.

There have also been some preliminary connections

between coaching and changes in student outcomes. For

example, a three-year study of the impact of Cognitive

Coaching (a particular model of coaching) showed student

scores improved on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills in treatment

schools compared to control groups (Grinder, 1996). The

same study showed referrals to special education declined in

the treatment schools. Researchers from the Foundation for

Comprehensive Early Literacy Learning (Swartz, 2003) have

reported a positive effect on student achievement linked to

coaching. Likewise, Lyons and Pinnell (2001) saw a connection between literacy coaching and increased achievement in

reading and writing.

Norton (2001) documented the positive results of the

statewide Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI) on the literacy of

seventh-grade students. Lapp and her colleagues (2003)

showed increased student literacy achievement when reading

specialists provided half-time peer coaching and half-time

student tutoring in three high-poverty schools.

However, these reports are primarily evaluations or program self-reports. They are limited in that they describe

vastly different interventions in very different contexts.

Overall, there is little exploration of what it is that coaches do

that makes a difference in student learning (Greene, 2004).

FULFILLING MULTIPLE ROLES

Part of the difficulty comes from the multiple meanings

embedded in the word “coach.” Although it is increasingly

common for schools to report that they have reading coaches,

it is far from clear that these schools share common experiences. Instead, there’s tremendous variation in how coaches’

time and expertise is employed. 

Recently published descriptions show coaches fulfilling a

wide range of roles, including the following:

• Assist teachers in implementing new curricular programs

(Poglinco et al., 2003)

• Consult with and mentor teachers (Costa & Garmston,

2002)

• Support teachers as they “apply knowledge, develop skills,

polish technique and deepen their understanding” (Lyons

& Pinnell, 2001)

• Write grants (Walpole & McKenna, 2004)

• Plan and research (Walpole & McKenna, 2004)

• Lead discussion groups (Sweeney, 2003)

• Facilitate study or book groups (Walpole & McKenna, 2004)

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 43
Even within a single federal program such as Reading

First, there is substantial variation in how coaches are used.

The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory’s work on

the statewide evaluations of Reading First in five western

states (Autio, Nelsestuen, & Deussen, 2006; Deussen, Autio,

Nelsestuen, Roccograndi, & Scott, 2006; Nelsestuen &

Autio, 2005; Smiley & Vale, 2005) documented instances of

coaches working in most of the ways highlighted previously.

The coaches also take on additional tasks that consume a significant portion of their time in schools:

• Coordinate student reading assessments (administer,

score, enter data, assist teachers with interpretation of

results)

• Coordinate interventions for struggling readers (identify

students; plan intervention lessons; hire, train, and supervise interventionists; monitor 

student progress) 

• Coordinate and/or provide group

professional development

In addition to the enormous variety of roles and responsibilities, there

is disagreement about the degree to

which coaching should be directive,

geared to ensuring implementation

of a program, or collegial and targeted

at enhancing teacher capacity for selfreflection (Costa & Garmston, 2002;

Joyce & Showers, 2002). In the former, the coach plays the role of an

expert coming in to help teachers implement a program with

specific practices; the coach’s work can become that of

encouraging program compliance. Some research suggests

that teachers may be less likely to change in compliance models, although newer teachers may be more open to this type

of coaching (Gersten, Morvant, & Brengelman, 1995). 

In contrast, coaching for self-reflection is a more collaborative model in which both the coach and the teacher share

equally in decisions about instruction. The job of the coach

varies, but often includes helping teachers deepen their

understanding of how students learn to read and write as well

as the teacher’s role in making learning effective. 

In one version of reflection-oriented coaching developed

by the Learning Network, district or outside facilitators train

selected teachers as reflective teachers in their own classrooms. Once the selected new coaches have internalized the

reflection process and have deepened their own understandings about literacy, they begin to coach others. Coaches work

“alongside” their teacher colleagues, providing personalized

support based on the goals and needs identified by individual

teachers; sometimes teachers are “nudged” by the coach

based on school or district goals and expectations (Riddle

Buly, 2004).

This approach to coaching appears to be associated with an

increased use of effective instructional practices (Mallette,

Maheady, & Harper, 1999); positive change in school culture

(Edwards, Green, Lyons, Rogers, & Swords, 1998); and

teacher reflection and depth of thinking (Edwards & Green,

1999). Furthermore, positive student outcomes were documented when preservice teachers engaged in literacy-focused

peer coaching (Mallette, Maheady, & Harper, 1999).

SEEKING ANSWERS

With so many possible combinations of roles, responsibilities, and orientations falling within the coaching domain,

educators need guidance in deciding the best ways to focus

the work of coaches. This question is

all the more crucial as more states and

districts invest educational funds in

providing coaches and want to ensure

that the investment yields results.

Under Reading First alone, more

than 5,600 schools have hired fulltime reading coaches. Many other

states and districts have deployed

coaches in their elementary as well as

middle and high schools—without

necessarily knowing how best to use

them as a resource.

As an article in Education Week

(Manzo, 2005) pointed out, although the use of coaches is

increasingly common, some experts worry that many coaches

may lack the knowledge and expertise needed to help teachers improve their reading instruction. It is even harder to

provide this guidance when educators are uncertain about

what it is that coaches should be doing. 

Future research can help point the way by clarifying what

effective coaching looks like, what qualities schools should

look for when hiring coaches, and what training coaches

need to become effective. Research is needed on how coaches

work, the prevalence of compliance versus reflective models,

and how these variations affect instruction and, ultimately,

student learning. All this information can help states, districts, and schools use their precious resources wisely to provide the training and guidance needed to maximize the

effective use of literacy coaches. ■

About the authors: Theresa Deussen is a project director in the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Assessment at NWREL. She is the

principal investigator in a current study of how Reading First coaches

spend their time (see story, page 11). Marsha Riddle Buly is an associate professor of Literacy Education at Western Washington University in Bellingham.

44 nwrel.org/nwedu/

RESEARCH BRIEF
REFERENCES

Autio, E., Nelsestuen, K., & Deussen, T. (2006). Wyoming

Reading First: Year 2 evaluation report 2005–2006. Portland,

OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.

Costa, A., & Garmston, R. (2002). Cognitive Coaching: A foundation for Renaissance schools. Norwood, MA: ChristopherGordon. 

Deussen, T., Autio, E., Nelsestuen, K., Roccograndi, A., &

Scott, C. (2006). Washington Reading First annual evaluation

report 2006. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.

Edwards, J.L., & Green, K.E. (1999, April). Growth in coaching

skills over a three-year period: Progress toward mastery. Paper

presented at the meeting of the American Educational

Research Association, Montreal, Canada.

Edwards, J.L., Green, K.E., Lyons, C.A., Rogers, M.S., &

Swords, M.E. (1998, April). The effects of Cognitive Coaching

and nonverbal classroom management on teacher efficacy and perceptions of school culture. Paper presented at the meeting of

the American Educational Research Association, San

Diego, CA.

Gersten, R., Morvant, M., & Brengelman, S. (1995). Close to

the classroom is close to the bone: Coaching as a means to

translate research into classroom practice. Exceptional Children, 62(1), 52–66.

Greene, T. (2004). Literature review for school-based staff developers and coaches. Oxford, OH: National Staff Development

Council. Retrieved August 9, 2006, from www.nsdc.org/

library/schoolbasedlitreview.pdf

Grinder, M. (1996). Envoy: Your personal guide to classroom management. Battle Ground, WA: Michael Grinder Associates.

Joyce, B., & Showers, B. (2002). Student achievement through

staff development. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Lapp, D., Fisher, D., Flood, J., & Frey, N. (2003). Dual role

of the urban reading specialist. Journal of Staff Development,

24(2), 33–36.

Lyons, C.A., & Pinnell, G.S. (2001). Systems for change in literacy education. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Mallette, B., Maheady, L., & Harper, G.F. (1999). The effects

of reciprocal peer coaching on preservice general educators’ instruction of students with special needs. Teacher

Education and Special Education, 22(4), 201–216.

Manzo, K. (2005, July 25). States and districts send literacy

coaches to the rescue: But experts worry that some of

them lack know-how to help teachers with reading. Education Week. Retrieved August 9, 2006, from www.edweek.

org/ew/articles/

National Staff Development Council. (2001). NSDC standards for staff development. Oxford, OH: Author. Retrieved

September 15, 2006, from www.nsdc.org/standards/

index.cfm

Nelsestuen, K., & Autio, E. (2005). Montana Reading First

annual evaluation report 2005. Portland, OR: Northwest

Regional Educational Laboratory.

Neufeld, B., & Roper, D. (2003). Coaching: A strategy for developing instructional capacity—Promises and practicalities. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute, and Providence, RI:

Annenberg Institute for School Reform.

Norton, J. (2001). A storybook breakthrough. Journal of Staff

Development, 22(4), 22–25. Retrieved August 9, 2006, from

www.nsdc.org/library/publications/jsd/norton224.pdf

Perie, M., Grigg, W., & Donahue, P. (2005). The nation’s report

card: Reading 2005. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of

Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

Retrieved September 15, 2006, from http://nces.ed.gov/

nationsreportcard/pdf/main2005/2006451.pdf

Poglinco, S.M., Bach, A.J., Hovde, K., Rosenblum, S., Saunders, M., & Supovitz, J.A. (2003). The heart of the matter: The

coaching model in America’s Choice schools. Philadelphia, PA:

University of Pennsylvania, Consortium for Policy

Research in Education. Retrieved September 12, 2006,

from www.cpre.org/Publications/AC-06.pdf

Riddle Buly, M. (2004). A districtwide instructional coaching professional development process: Bellingham, Washington. Urbana,

IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Showers, B., & Joyce, B. (1996). The evolution of peer

coaching. Educational Leadership, 53(6), 12–16.

Smiley, R., & Vale, E. (2005). Alaska Reading First annual evaluation report 2005. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional

Educational Laboratory.

Swartz, S. (2003). The Foundation for Comprehensive Early Literacy Learning (2003) research report: 1994–2003. Retrieved

August 9, 2006, from www.stanswartz.com/

foundationresearchreport1.htm

Sweeney, D. (2003). Learning along the way: Professional development by and for teachers. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

U.S. Department of Education. (2002). Guidance for the Reading First program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government

Printing Service.

Walpole, S., & McKenna, M.C. (2004). The literacy coach’s

handbook: A guide to research-based practices. New York, NY:

Guilford Press.

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 45
46 nwrel.org/nwedu/

REGION AT A GLANCE

“Proficiency” is readily mistaken as a

purely objective phenomenon. On close

examination, though, it is clear that it’s a

question of great subjectivity. This is

amply demonstrated by the accompanying charts that present national and state

standards-based testing results for reading in 2005 in the five Northwest states.

The same students are two to three

times more likely to be judged “proficient” on state standards-based tests as

on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), a national standards-based exam. This discrepancy

occurs because of choices made in the

content being tested, the difficulty of

the test items, and the setting of cut

scores. While there are ways of ensuring consistency, reliability, and precision

within a single state’s standards-based

system, there is little reason to expect

similar proficiency rates when comparing one state’s results to another’s or to

the NAEP results for the same students.

Given this background, it is almost

surprising that there isn’t more variation among the Northwest states on

their state standards-based assessment

results. While the NAEP spreads are

comparable to those on the state exams,

there seems to be a surprising inverse

correlation: In grade 8 reading, the

three Northwest states with the lowest

proficiency rates on state exams had the

highest proficiency rates on the NAEP.

Similarly, in grade 4 reading, the

Northwest state with the lowest rate on

its state assessment tied for the highest

proficiency rate on the NAEP. ■

27%

33%

75%

36%

82%

29%

36%

78%

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

Perce

Alaska Idaho Montana Oregon Washington

nt of grade 4 students at or above proficient in reading

(grade 5 students for Oregon state assessment)

State assessments 2005 NAEP 2005

Elementary School

86%

Across the Northwest, elementary students’ reading proficiency rates are relatively uniform 

on state standards-based assessments. NAEP proficiency rates are uniformly much lower.

80%

National NAEP grade 4

reading proficiency rate: 30%

26%

32%

64%

37%

63%

33% 34%

80%

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

Perce

Alaska Idaho Montana Oregon Washington

nt of grade 8 students at or above proficient in reading

(grade 7 students for Washington state assessment)

State assessments 2005 NAEP 2005

Middle School

82%

National NAEP grade 8

reading proficiency rate: 29%

Middle school students’ reading proficiency rates show more variability on the state 

standards-based assessments than do elementary students’ rates. The range is also wider 

than on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

69%

Reading Proficiency Rates

The Different Meanings of Proficiency By Richard Greenough
END NOTE

Each summer, two dozen Portland artists literally hit the bricks to promote literacy. As part of Chalk

It Up, artists like Melissa Delzio (whose work is pictured above) create 30 x 40-inch chalk drawings with reading themes—using downtown Portland’s Pioneer Square as their “studio.” The artwork, along with a book sale and raffle, raises money for Oregon Literacy’s tutoring, advocacy, and

referral services. The annual event, attended by about 5,000 people, serves another important purpose: It draws attention to the fact that one in five adults in America reads at or below the fifthgrade level. For more information on Oregon Literacy, check out www.oregonliteracy.org.

Photo courtesy Ann Buenzli

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 47
Tackling dropout prevention as early as the third grade,

improving K–12 literacy, and preparing school leaders to

spearhead reform efforts: All are burning issues on the local

educational landscape. That’s according to the latest needs

assessment conducted by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.

Each year NWREL takes the pulse of the region through a

series of hearings alternated with an extensive survey. In

doing so, NWREL fulfills a requirement of its regional educational laboratory (REL)

contract to identify “educational needs, strengths, and

weaknesses.” Yet, as Steve

Nelson, director of planning and service coordination, points out, “We see

this as more than simply

meeting a condition of the

REL. We’re informing all of

our work and serving

regional interests.” 

During summer 2006,

NWREL held forums that

attracted a diverse group of

constituents in all five

Northwest states. The sessions tapped into the concerns of governors’ aides, state legislators, teachers, parents, school administrators, school board

association members, state education officials, librarians, and

higher education representatives. 

The starting point of the conversation was different this

year, reflecting a change in federal priorities. “We had to shift

the discussion from what needs can we serve by technical

assistance to what evidence can we provide that will help you

make better choices,” says Nelson. No one had a problem

with making that shift, though Nelson says people were

“shocked” to learn that the federal REL contract no longer

funds direct services. 

“We asked people to look on the horizon at decisions,

problems, and issues related to No Child Left Behind where

evidence would help,” adds Jim Leffler, director of REL field

services. Predictably, educators around the region are still

grappling with a number of NCLB requirements, including

the stepped-up demand for parental involvement. “It’s not

about Title I committees anymore,” says Nelson. “Some

schools have been accustomed to one-way communication.

Now, they have to deal with the fact that parents have a right

to be involved in their

child’s education and make

decisions on what that

looks like.”

Ultimately, the information gathered at the hearings will feed into next

year’s survey. Proceedings

from the sessions, compiled by the Gilmore

Research Group, will help

NWREL center directors

identify topics for shortterm research studies. The

findings will also drive an

agenda for collaborations

with university researchers.

And, NWREL’s board and executive cabinet will use the

needs assessment to find other ways to fund services. Finally,

copies of the proceedings will go back to participants so they

can see what their peers across the region are thinking.

“One of the values of the convening is the opportunity for

networking,” says Leffler. “The people at the hearings appreciated the fact that NWREL could bring them together. I

think they had as much fun talking to each other as they did

to us.” ■

Hearings Shed Light on Regional Needs 

NWREL NEWS

48 nwrel.org/nwedu/
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 49

Onward to Excellence—the Northwest Regional Educational

Laboratory’s nationally known school improvement process—

has taken on a new target. Now called OTE II, the process is

helping schools ensure that all students become proficient

readers—especially at the secondary level. 

OTE II’s Focus on Reading provides comprehensive

training and ongoing support to middle and high schools to

significantly boost the number of students who measure up

to state reading standards. “With the original OTE II model,

it takes a considerable amount of time to narrow down specific goals during the school improvement process,” says

Deborah Davis, manager of NWREL’s Improving School

Systems Program. “With Focus on Reading, schools struggling with low rates of reading proficiency can get right to

work on an area they know requires immediate schoolwide

attention.” 

A unique feature of Focus on Reading, says Davis, “is the

coherent weaving together of all the aspects that schools

face—the schedule, tutorial programs, materials, and content

instruction—into an approach designed to help struggling

readers reach the level of proficiency required to comprehend the content.”

The teaching and learning inventory (TALI) is another key

feature that distinguishes Focus on Reading from one-sizefits-all reading programs. During the intensive, multiday

inventory, a team of reading and school reform experts

observe classrooms of different levels and disciplines; conduct peer focus groups with students, staff, and parents; and

hold one-on-one interviews with teachers and administrators. All these activities go into forming a customized professional development program that recognizes the school’s

strengths and weaknesses. Depending on the

school’s needs, workshops might focus on

using evidence-based practices to help students read in every content area, forming a

schoolwide curricular focus, or making 

data-driven decisions.

NWREL literacy expert and TALI team

member Maureen Carr summarizes the

benefits of the inventory: “Whatever comes

out of it shapes the rest of the program—

what we recommend in terms of training

and support.” During one recent TALI at a

middle school, the team identified a critical

strength that simply needed to be articulated.

“The entire teaching staff echoed the ideal

that improving literacy is everyone’s job,”

Carr notes. “But they lacked a schoolwide plan incorporating

a set of reading strategies that would be used in every content

area, in every classroom. Forming, implementing, and sustaining this plan is one way Focus on Reading could help this

school.” 

The team proposed that teachers from different grade levels

and subject areas develop a set of reading strategies. To aid in

the process, OTE II trainers helped organize and train professional learning teams to monitor, support, and sustain change.

A COMPANION GUIDE

Participants in the Focus on Reading process—and others

interested in helping secondary school students—receive

guidance and inspiration from NWREL’s Improving Adolescent

Reading: Findings From Research. The book centers on six guiding questions that must be addressed to improve reading

schoolwide: 

1. What are the research-based instructional practices that

help more students access required reading in content

classrooms?

2. What types of additional support do struggling readers

need?

3. How should assessments be used to determine appropriate instruction for students who struggle with reading? 

4. How can the school organization and outreach to families

reflect a coordinated effort to boost achievement of struggling readers?

5. What role does student motivation play in reading development for middle and high school students?

6. What are the most effective ways to provide middle and

high school teachers with professional development

related to adolescent reading?

In the book, each question is followed by

research-based best practices, implications

for schools, and teacher resources. To order a

copy of Improving Adolescent Reading: Findings

From Research, visit NWREL’s online product

catalog (www.nwrel.org/comm/catalog/) or

call 800-547-6339, ext. 519. To discuss bringing the Focus on Reading professional development program to your site, call Deborah

Davis at 800-547-6339, ext. 644 or e-mail

davisd@nwrel.org. ■

School Improvement Process Targets Increasing Reading Proficiency
NWREL NEWS

50 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Popular Research Synthesis Reissued

Wouldn’t it be convenient if the most important research on

effective schooling practices were boiled down to one manageable, easy-to-read booklet? Good news—that’s what is

provided in the new edition of The Schooling

Practices That Matter Most. Written by the late

Kathleen Cotton, a nationally known and

prolific NWREL researcher, this booklet is

a perfect example of Cotton’s talent for synthesizing and translating complex material.

In a concise 36 pages, The Schooling Practices That Matter Most suggests 15 wellresearched attributes—10 contextual and

five instructional—that together may hold

the greatest promise for educating all students to high standards. The booklet

describes each of the 15 practices, why it

was selected, its relation to other identified

practices, and key findings on how the practice impacts student performance. An

extensive bibliography completes the userfriendly guide.

Cotton concludes the booklet noting, “The areas of practice identified here rest on considerable research weight, are

entirely or partially school controllable, and most—though

not all—can be implemented without significant new expenditures. We clearly owe it

to educators and the public to share what we

know about the relative effectiveness of possible arrangements and practices, and I trust

that this paper helps define and impart that

knowledge.”

The Schooling Practices That Matter Most

can be ordered from NWREL’s online

product catalog—www.nwrel.org/comm/

catalog/—or by calling 800-547-6339, ext.

519. ■

Conference Call

6+1 TRAIT® WRITING ASSESSMENT:

INTRODUCTORY INSTITUTE 

December 12–15, 2006 

(Registration now open)

NWREL, Portland, OR

May 22–25, 2007 

(Registration begins February 1, 2007)

Skamania Lodge, Stevenson, WA 

In this four-day institute, participants

will learn to use clearly defined scoring

guides to evaluate K–12 student writing across seven dimensions of performance: ideas, organization, voice,

6+1 TRAIT® WRITING ASSESSMENT FOR

TRAINERS INSTITUTE

February 21–23, 2007 

(Registration begins November 1, 2006)

NWREL, Portland, OR 

This three-day advanced training of

trainers institute is for those wishing to

conduct 6+1 TRAIT training workshops in their own districts. The institute includes a review of the writing

traits and strategies, lesson design,

training considerations, and workshop

planning. Previous training in the

model is required.

For information on these and other 6+1

TRAIT trainings, contact Sharon Northern

at 800-547-6339, ext. 572, or e-mail

northers@nwrel.org. More details can also

be found at www.nwrel.org/assessments/

trainings.php ■

word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation. Participants

will also learn how to implement traitbased instruction in the classroom. 

Separate sessions will be tailored to

the interests of K–3 teachers and those

teaching grades 4–12. While K–3 teachers focus on understanding and implementing the traits at the primary level,

grade 4–12 teachers will have the

opportunity to develop curriculum

maps and write lesson plans around the

traits.

Participants may register for all four

days of the institute or attend two days

of either the grade 4–12 portion or K–3

portion. Registration is now open; see

details at right. 
Flashback

1. IMPLEMENTING PLTS

A summer institute hosted by staff members of NWREL’s

Center for School and District Improvement aimed at helping teachers and administrators organize and lead professional learning teams (PLTs). The training was attended by 29

people from seven schools and districts around the country,

including San Diego, Los Angeles, and Van Nuys, California;

League City, Texas; Pasco, Washington; St. Helens, Oregon;

and Orangeburg, South Carolina. A two-day follow-up

training is scheduled for November to introduce more PLT

tools and strategies. Periodic conference calls will also check

on the group’s successes,

challenges, and insights in

introducing PLTs into their

own schools. 

2. LEARNING ABOUT

INTERVENTION

A symposium sponsored by

NWREL’s Comprehensive

Center brought together

state-level representatives

from general education and special education to learn about

Response to Intervention (RTI) and to discuss its implications for policy and practice. The event was attended by Title I,

Reading First, and special education staff members from

Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. Highlights of the first day included a presentation on Why RTI?

Integrating Prevention and Remediation, by Jack M.

Fletcher of the University of Houston. Joseph Witt of

Louisiana State University spoke about RTI Implementation: Issues and Lessons Learned.

3. INVESTIGATING MATHEMATICS PROBLEM SOLVING 

At a training for middle school teachers, NWREL launched a

research project to validate the effectiveness of the Laboratory’s Mathematics ProblemSolving Model. The teachers

are participating in a five-year

project funded by the

National Science Foundation

(NSF) and led by Principal

Investigator Edith Gummer.

Using the NWREL model’s

rubric, the teachers solved

open-ended problems and

scored examples of student

solutions. They will also receive training on

a feedback scoring guide—appropriate to

their grade levels—to use throughout the

year with their own students. Professor

Tom Dick of Oregon State University (pictured) described data collection requirements for the project. ■

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 51

What’s New on the Web

There are currently hundreds of Web

sites, catalog retailers, and retail outlets

selling six-trait writing products. To distinguish the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory’s offerings from

the others and to build brand recognition, NWREL has launched a new Web

site: www.thetraits.com.

The site will feature 6+1 Trait®

Writing products and trainings. It will

also give users of the model an opportunity to offer feedback and data.

NWREL hopes to use the site to identify who is using the model and how, as

well as to develop ideas for new

• Tips, strategies, and an “ask the

experts” column

• Various 6+1 TRAIT resources

Additional URLs have also been

acquired to further drive traffic to the

new 6+1 TRAIT site. These related

URLs will redirect users to

www.thetraits.com:

• www.thetraits.org

• www.weecanwrite.com

• www.six-traits.com

• www.6-traits.com ■

TRAIT-based products and services. In

addition, the site is designed to position

NWREL as the creator and primary

innovator of the model. 

According to Marketing Manager

Cary Craig, the site will offer valuable

features to encourage frequent visits:

• A users’ forum or blog where users

can share information and relate

experiences

• A training schedule promoting

upcoming NWREL trainings

• A complete catalog of 6+1 TRAIT

products

2

3

1
NWREL provides top-quality professional development, technical assistance, and evaluation services based on

solid research of best practices and 40

years of working with schools and communities in the Northwest. Here’s a

sampling of our many educational

improvement services that can be

designed specifically to meet the needs

of your school or district. Visit

www.nwrel.org/edservices/ for a complete catalog of services.

6+1 Trait® Writing for Assessment and

Instruction

This popular model gives teachers a

powerful framework to formatively

evaluate student writing. The model

features an analytical approach focused

on the traits that characterize quality

writing. Used in thousands of classrooms throughout the world, the 6+1

TRAIT process was developed by

Northwest educators seeking a better

system for grading students’ written

work and providing effective feedback

to help students improve their writing. 

This service can be customized for

K–12 classroom, special education, and

ELL teachers; literacy coaches and

trainers; curriculum specialists; and

school and district administrators.

Participants will learn: 

• To use a common language and

vision of what good writing looks like

• To apply specific trait rubrics to

score work samples and provide

effective feedback

• To develop creative strategies that

engage students in the process of

quality writing

Contact: Sharon Northern—800-547-

6339, ext. 572; northers@nwrel.org

Mathematics Problem-Solving Model

Through a series of professional development experiences, teachers learn to

implement teaching strategies that

improve student learning and performance. An important part of this experience is a cycle of classroom visits. A

NWREL facilitator demonstrates the

instruction of open-ended problem

solving for teachers in their classrooms.

Next, the facilitator observes teachers

applying the model with their students.

Teachers receive feedback and the

opportunity to reflect on the lesson and

student learning. As a result, participants gain expertise and confidence in

teaching mathematics through problem solving.

This service can be customized for

teachers of mathematics, paraeducators

who work in mathematics, and education administrators. We encourage

teams from the same school, district, or

organization to attend together. It is

most effective to tailor this service to

specific grade clusters: K–2, 3–5, 6–8,

or 9–12.

Participants will learn:

• To use formative tools to assess student problem solving

• To identify and implement standards-based performance assessment tasks

• To apply traits of mathematics problem solving and the process of learning mathematics

For general information about the

mathematics problem-solving model,

go to www.nwrel.org/msec/mpm/.

Contact: Claire Gates—800-547-6339,

ext. 173; gatesc@nwrel.org

52 nwrel.org/nwedu/

View NWREL’s complete services catalog at www.nwrel.org/edservices/catalog/

NWREL SERVICES
Paraeducator Professional Development

This series of workshops gives paraeducators field-tested ways to increase

their content knowledge and support

teachers in the instruction of reading,

writing, and mathematics. Each content area module consists of a two-day

workshop and assignments that paraeducators can use to create a portfolio

and document their knowledge.

NWREL designed this service to support Section 1119 of the No Child Left

Behind Act, requiring paraeducators to

meet a rigorous standard of quality and

demonstrate their ability in contentarea instruction.

This service can be customized for

paraeducators and their partner teachers, principals, and/or supervisors.

Participants will learn: 

• To support teachers’ instruction in

reading, writing, and mathematics

• To use research and best practices in

reading, writing, and mathematics

Contact: Kit Peixotto—800-547-6339,

ext. 594; peixottk@nwrel.org

Evaluation Services

NWREL’s professional evaluators

deliver high-quality evaluation services

that help organizations measure and

improve the impact of their programs.

Our evaluators are able to collaborate

with a wide array of NWREL content

experts to provide evaluation services

in many different areas. 

We work with clients to understand

their organization’s current conditions,

improve existing programs, develop

new programs, support continued

improvement, and document results.

In addition, NWREL provides technical assistance to help clients build,

manage, understand, use, and communicate information about their programs. NWREL ensures evaluations

comply with federal or state mandates

for program accountability.

For general information about how

program evaluation works, consult Program Evaluation: An Introduction at

www.nwrel.org/overview.shtml.

Contact: Ann Rader—800-547-6339,

ext. 558; radera@nwrel.org

Focus on Mathematics

Focus on Reading

These separate but similar services provide customized training and ongoing

support to middle and high schools

seeking to increase student proficiency

in mathematics or reading. An external

facilitator assists teaching staff in aligning instruction and classroom material

with state standards. The facilitator also

provides school leadership with techniques for building staff support to

implement practices that result in

improved student outcomes. Both professional development services are

based on NWREL’s nationally

acclaimed Onward to Excellence II

(OTE II) school improvement process

and our best-selling research syntheses,

Improving Adolescent Mathematics: Findings From Research and Improving Adolescent Reading: Findings From Research.

These services can be customized

for leadership teams, faculty groups,

and professional learning teams of

teachers in middle and high schools.

Participants will learn: 

• To use best practices data and

research to guide decisions about

instruction

• To work collaboratively in professional learning teams examining

effective practices

• To implement immediate and longterm practices designed to increase

student proficiency in mathematics

or reading

Contact: Deborah Davis—800-547-

6339, ext. 644; davisd@nwrel.org

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2006 53
NONPROFIT ORG.

U.S. POSTAGE

PAID

PORTLAND, OREGON

PERMIT NO. 250

NORTHWEST REGIONAL EDUCATIONAL LABORATORY 

101 S.W. Main Street, Suite 500

Portland, Oregon 97204

www.nwrel.org/nwedu/

For questions regarding 

Northwest Education

call 503-275-9515

For all other inquiries 

regarding NWREL 

call 503-275-9500

NORTHWEST

EDUCATION

nwrel.org/nwedu/

Northwest Education is available online in both PDF and HTML versions.

Look for Web exclusives. 

Up next in the winter issue:

Leading District Reform