Literacy Coaching: Learning to Collaborate
Explore the possibilities for teacher development and student learning with celebrated educator, Barbara Walker. Drawing on her experiences with both pre-service and practicing teachers, Walker discusses the importance of learning to collaborate within the school and during classroom interactions while presenting literacy coaches and teachers with the “cycle of literacy coaching”, a step-by-step process for adapting classroom instruction to increase learning. She also outlines best practice strategies for implementation, including the multiple decisions that teachers make before, during, and after a literacy lesson. To learn more aboutLiteracy Coachingsee the inside front cover.  “Literacy coaching is a growing professional field in education.  This book would appeal to teachers and administrators in charge of developing student literacy and teacher education.  I would buy it for my literacy support teachers and for my new teachers who teach literacy subjects.”  -Joan Powell, literacy specialist,Whitley County Board of Education, Williamsburg KY “Coaching needs to come across as a service, a support…[Walker] does a good job of describing the coach’s role in a learning community.  [She] use[s] clear language… with a supportive tone.” -Jerri L. Foster, literacy specialist, Bentonville Public Schools, Bentonville, AR  Barbara J. Walkeris president of the International Reading Association (2008-2009), a professor at Oklahoma State University where she teaches courses in literacy leadership and coaching, and the co-editor forLiteracy Cases Online,a publication of the College Reading Association. She has served as an elementary reading specialist in public schools, a director of college reading programs, and an international coordinator of educational programs. Dr. Walker is the recipient of the College Reading Association's B. Herr Award for outstanding contributions to reading education and is a distinguished finalist for the International Reading Association's 1991 Albert J. Harris Award for research in reading disabilities. She has written numerous articles and authored four books, includingDiagnostic Teaching of Reading: Techniques for Instruction and Assessment(2008),Techniques for Reading Assessment and Instruction(2005),Supporting Struggling Readers(2003), all Allyn & Bacon.