Growing the Good Stuff

Abstract

This ethnographic study reports on one elementary literacy coach's response to highstakes testing and her approach to support third-through fifth-grade teachers in a Title I school in Texas. Sources of data included field notes and observations of classes and meetings, audio/video recordings, and transcribed interviews. The findings illustrate how the literacy coach used her knowledge and beliefs about teaching reading along with her position of leadership to craft alternative responses to an environment that endorsed a skills-based approach to teaching reading and placed a strong emphasis on test preparation. Specifically, the literacy coach enriched the skills-based reading curriculum with reading workshop, supported teachers' learning and growth with teacher-centered inquiry groups, and focused on language and authentic literature as a way of preparing students for the test. These findings suggest that the literacy coach played an important role in supporting teachers with negotiating the demands of a high-stakes testing environment and in ways that did not necessarily compromise the literacy coach's beliefs. These findings also suggest the importance of a supportive school environment where teachers have a sense of community for support and professional growth.

Facilitation Literacy: Circulating Power in Professional Learning Conversations With Teacher Colleagues

“…Research has affirmed that teachers benefit from facilitators’ efforts to establish dialogical interactions (Goldman, 2001). Yet, facilitators feel underprepared to offer feedback and negotiate interactions with colleagues, especially when their colleagues seem resistant (Zoch, 2015). Others’ research has underscored how that resistance is better understood by facilitators who develop adaptability in working within structural and accountability systems that threaten teachers’ power to advocate for particular kinds of literacy learning and instruction (Opfer & Pedder, 2011).…”

The Dangers of Test Preparation: What Students Learn (and Don't Learn) About Reading Comprehension From Test‐Centric Literacy Instruction

“…Cautions about teaching to the test are not new in the literature or in this journal (e.g., Hoffman, Assaf, & Paris, 2001;Shanahan, 2014). Recent research has underscored long-standing concerns about excessive test preparation leading to damaging effects on teachers and students (Zoch, 2015). Further, research cautions that instruction centered on testing might be more likely to occur in schools that serve students of color and those affected by poverty than in schools in more affluent communities (Booher-Jennings, 2005;Dooley & Assaf, 2009;Valenzuela, 2000).…”