The Relationships between Coaching and Instruction in the Primary Grades: Evidence from High-Poverty Schools

Walpole, Sharon; McKenna, Michael C.; Uribe-Zarain, Ximena; Lamitina, David

doi:10.1086/653472

Cited by 55 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…To date, however, few studies have investigated how coaches' actions, roles, and activities influence teachers' classroom practice. Our study builds and extends on the handful of studies that have (Garet et al, 2008;Matsumura et al, 2010a;Walpole et al, 2010). By comparing teachers' responses to messages when coaches were or were not involved, we provide evidence that teachers were more likely to make substantive change in their reading instruction and less likely to reject or have a more superficial response when they worked with a coach.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Reading Coaches and the Relationship Between Policy and Practice

Coburn

Woulfin

2012

Reading Research Quarterly

165

171

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Many educational policy initiatives use instructional coaching to accomplish their goals. Yet we know little about the role of reading coaches in mediating the relationship between policy and teachers’ classroom practice. In this article, we investigate the role of reading coaches in mediating the relationship between Reading First policy and teachers’ classroom practice. We conducted an in‐depth, longitudinal case study of one urban elementary school in Massachusetts, starting the year before the onset of Reading First and continuing through the first year of its implementation. In our analysis, we focus on seven first‐ and second‐grade teachers, two coaches, and two school administrators. We argue that, although reading coaches were only one of multiple sources from which teachers learned about Reading First policy, teachers were much more likely to make substantial changes in their classroom practice when they learned about the policy message from a coach than from other sources. Coaches influenced teachers by helping them to learn new approaches and to integrate them into their classroom. But, they also did so by pressuring teachers, shaping how they saw and understood Reading First, and by counseling them on which aspects of the policy to focus on and which aspects to ignore. Thus, we present a vision of coaching that goes much beyond its educational roles, to highlight the political roles of the coach as well. We close by drawing implications for research on coaching, policy implementation, and practice.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Reading Coaches and the Relationship Between Policy and Practice

Coburn

Woulfin

2012

Reading Research Quarterly

165

171

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In prior work, we have established the benefit of teachers’ engagement in ongoing, one-on-one consultation and feedback loops focused on teacher-child interactions (Pianta et al, 2008). This positive effect of focused coaching or consultation for improving teachers’ interactions with children has been found in other recent studies of early childhood classrooms (Domitrovich, Gest, Gill, Bierman, Welsh, & Jones, 2009; Neuman & Wright, 2010; Raver, Jones, Li-Grining, Metzger, Smallwood, & Sardin, 2008) and in the k-12 grades (e.g., Cantrell & Hughes, 2008; Sailors & Shanklin, 2010; Walpole, McKenna, Uribe-Zarain, & Lamitina, 2010). …”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Effects of Web-Mediated Teacher Professional Development on the Language and Literacy Skills of Children Enrolled in Prekindergarten Programs

et al. 2011

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As early education grows in the United States, in-service professional development in key instructional and interaction skills is a core component of capacity-building in early childhood education. In this paper, we describe results from an evaluation of the effects of MyTeachingPartner, a web-based system of professional development, on language and literacy development during pre-kindergarten for 1338 children in 161 teachers’ classrooms. High levels of support for teachers’ implementation of language/literacy activities showed modest but significant effects for improving early language and literacy for children in classrooms in which English was the dominant language spoken by the students and teachers. The combination of web-based supports, including video-based consultation and web-based video teaching exemplars, was more effective at improving children’s literacy and language skills than was only making available to teachers a set of instructional materials and detailed lesson guides. These results suggest the importance of targeted, practice-focused supports for teachers in designing professional development systems for effective teaching in early childhood programs.

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“…CLLIP coaches faced several challenges in successfully providing structured support. They had to build trusting relationships with teachers so that teachers felt comfortable being observed in their classrooms; at the same time, they had to foster the integration of newly acquired knowledge of scientifically based reading research into practice, all while building the foundation of a coordinated effort toward school reform (Walpole, McKenna, Uribe-Zarain, & Lamitina, 2010). To facilitate the learning of instructional practices, coaches also modeled lessons for teachers at the teacher's request if she or he felt unsure how to attempt a new instructional approach.…”

Section: Cllip Intervention Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Formal standardized assessment of improvement in teacher instructional practices using new observational tools (e.g., Walpole et al, 2010) is essential to understanding the impact of coaching on instruction. If we are truly confident that we have identified best practices in reading instruction, then it seems most appropriate that teacher observation is used for accountability in order to ensure that those demonstrably effective practices are fully implemented.…”

Section: Next Stepsmentioning

confidence: 99%