A Letter to Cornernerstone Colleagues
Dear Colleagues, I love school! The fall semester, full and brimming over with the look, smell, and sound of a new school year, is delicious! The anticipation of new book bags and shoes, a box of 54 Crayola crayons, and freshly scrubbed desks are school traditions that mark new beginnings for children and teachers. September excitement soon wears down and the school year runs head long into October and spills over into the Thanksgiving holidays before we know it. By this time, schools take in a great collective breath to build energy for the last formal learning days before the holiday break. December days and weeks mark the countdown to a slower pace and a respite from the busy semester. At this time every year, I can hardly believe that we have spun through half of our school year; and it is just about this time that we all realize that our batteries have run down. We are all weary, but it is a good feeling to know that we have started something important in the lives of so many children! The point is, schools are lively busy places with little down time for thinking about past and future endeavors. Diligently carving out time to plan and think about the work of a second semester must be a priority. The winter holidays provide an opportunity for me to carve out my thinking time! I demand November as my time to reflect on my good fortune to serve Cornerstone Schools. I want to thank each of you for your persistence and effort in providing the best literacy instruction for our Cornerstone children. As the first semester of the 2005-2006 school year closes, I am sure this has been one of our best together. A sense of exhilaration and excitement is building as the Regional conferences are just around the corner. This year's hosts, Horry County and Springfield, are working with great care to provide the Cornerstone network with a myriad of the best and newest professional development opportunities, all built upon the strong foundation of the 2005 Regional and Summer Institutes! We have much to look forward to as we explore the coming school semester. New materials such as the 2005-2006 Cornerstone Toolkit and the modules being developed by the Literacy and Leadership Fellows are sure to add fresh and appealing content for school use. Released this September, the toolkit is packed with materials to support our work. The new Cornerstone Instructional Emphasis Continuum, a tool found in the new toolkit is designed to focus and direct delivery of literacy content to Cornerstone coaches. The continuum is a flexible guide for the coaches' professional development. The ultimate goal of this document and the partnership between Fellows and coaches is to provide all children the opportunity made explicit in the Cornerstone definition of literacy: " To read, to write, to think critically, to reason, to analyze and evaluate information, to communicate effectively in a variety of forms and to inquire systematically into any important matter." The Cornerstone Instructional Emphasis Continuum supplies a literacy content plan and a focus by year as we go about the business of preparing school teams, coaches, and principals as professionals who lead the Cornerstone Initiative. The Literacy Fellows use this to guide the work with schools and coaches in a manner that suits the needs of the latter. Why this continuum important for our work? Is it just another toolkit document to live on a dusty shelf? We are aware of the now over-used statement by Reid Lyon. The often misused premise of Lyon suggests that a child who struggles to read by seven years of age has a very narrow chance of becoming a proficient reader. Keith Stanovich popularized the terminology of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer in terms of reading. The general translation of this body of work paints a morbid picture of poor readers dropping further behind while their more able peers continue to grow. The gap in reading ability widens between those who are successful as emergent readers and those who struggle. Obviously, the early years of reading are seminal, and it is imperative that schools and teachers get literacy instruction right in these first years of reading development. Likewise, it is urgent that the work conducted between Literacy Fellow and Cornerstone Coach be well planned and comprehensive. Children's success in school depends upon their learning to read. We cannot afford to waste our instructional time with these young readers. Each contact a Literacy Fellow makes with a school and Cornerstone coach merits detailed attention. The importance of a plan to develop reading coaches is vital and must be thought through to the smallest detail with many experts and voices hearing and critiquing the plan and its contents. Over the course of two years, this is precisely the process that took place in the development of the Cornerstone Instructional Emphasis Continuum. Furthermore, the continuum provides equal access to all coaches and a starting point for differentiation of adult learning. It gives all a focus which is one of the critical components necessary for school renewal. This comprehensive coverage of important literacy content furnishes a freedom to teach confidently that only comes with deep knowledge of literacy content. By taking full advantage of the partnership with Literacy Fellows and the wealth of knowledge developed through the Cornerstone Instructional Emphasis Continuum, coaches become entrepreneurs of literacy instructional strategies. Ultimately, Cornerstone coaches provide literacy instruction that creates a pump instead of a sieve. This vivid analogy portrays readers being drawn into the world of highly rigorous literacy work instead of being winnowed out as struggling readers. This approach to reading instruction builds momentum for all children, no matter what their economic station, race, or gender. The Cornerstone Instructional Emphasis Continuum is a useful planning tool to develop literacy coaches as leaders, decision makers, and experts in the field of literacy. This idea of reading teacher as entrepreneur is a result of the research of Gerald Duffy and includes these important tenants:
Recently, Janice Dole asked a group of successful and experienced reading coaches to describe the characteristics of an effective reading coach. They shared their thoughts by stating the obvious. To be effective, coaches must have a higher level of expertise than the teachers they are coaching. A coach must be respected first as a reading teacher in her own right. Being highly successful in the classroom with all types of readers wins the confidence and respect of peer teachers. These respected coaches often reflect on their own practice and continually work to improve their teaching. By being able to articulate their observations in classrooms, an effective coach leads others to do the same as instruction is moved to a rigorous level. The very best coaches know when to nudge and when to avoid stressing teachers in their school. Much of the content delivered by these coaches is carried in their head. Organizing and planning for instruction is efficient and often done "on the run." Finally, a sense of humor is the mark of the most successful reading coaches. I am in awe
of the work I see the Cornerstone coaches conduct. As I read the
research of Duffy and Dole, faces of Cornerstone
coaches light
up my heart. I celebrate the coaches' work and admire their toughness
as they face the challenges of coaching their peers. I find comfort
as I face challenges in my own coaching from the following quote: "The
one thing you can always change is yourself." In changing and
improving ourselves to lead the literacy work, we can do no better
than to study the new continuum and dig into the content with each
other. By studying the Standards for Reading Professionals
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