Literacy Coaching: Learning to Collaborate

Walker (literacy leadership and coaching, Oklahoma State U.) is current president of the International Reading Association and has written numerous articles, book chapters, and books. In her latest publication, she examines how reflective groups of teachers examine their classroom teaching with the support of a literacy coach, and the ways that literacy coaches work with teachers and their students to adapt instruction and improve student learning. Coverage includes the role of the school learning community in sustaining literacy coaching; collaboration and collaborative groups; the cycle of literacy coaching and the decisions teachers make before, during, and after a literacy lesson; the levels of support literacy coaches can use as they work with teachers; ways to observe, analyze, and interpret classroom interactions; and step-by-step descriptions of instructional techniques discussed in the text. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Barbara J. Walker is 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 for Literacy 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, including Diagnostic Teaching of Reading: Techniques for Instruction and Assessment (2008), Techniques for Reading Assessment and Instruction (2005), Supporting Struggling Readers (2003), all Allyn & Bacon.