Empowering Language Proficiency

As an avid reader all my life, giving students the gift of literacy is one of my passions! Much of my teaching career was spent teaching students how to read. One of my favorite times of day to plan and execute was always the literacy block, especially small group guided reading! #nerdalert. I continued my educational journey teaching third grade and eventually realized I wanted to branch out into instructional leadership. A new role was being created in my district called a Language Coach. My principal who I had been shadowing as a part of gaining my administrator certification suggested this role to me. She made the connection to soap boxes I often climbed on about the importance of talking and language to teaching reading. The language coaching role was replacing the traditional ESL teacher/specialist role as our district began experiencing an increase in multilingual learners but stagnation in their academic progress. 

The journey of being a part of the inaugural role during a time of shifting taught me so much about leadership, coaching and collaboration. Out of that learning I learned so much about the connection between language and literacy. Organizing thoughts and making them manageable was essential to my ability to build stakeholder capacity on how to best meet the needs of multilingual learners. The graphic below captures the four steps I began to follow and the questions I learned routinely ask myself and others. Which question resonates most with you? How might these questions and actions empower students and teachers? If you’d like to hear how this framework is leveraged in service of multilingual learners click here for a video explainer!