Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 1 | Literacy Coaches: An Evolving Role, page 5

Two pieces of legislation have been proposed that address the need for such funding. The PASS Act (see Sidebar) calls for funding for literacy coaches as well as academic counselors and resources. The Graduation for All Act is co-sponsored by Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-CA) and Congressman Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX), who is Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Education Task Force. The Act could provide $1 billion in federal funding for schools to place literacy coaches in high schools and implement individualized graduation plans for students most at risk of dropping out of high school. Graduation for All is targeted at schools with the lowest graduation rates and allocates funding for at least one literacy coach for every high-needs middle and high school. Coaches would help teachers incorporate research-based reading and writing instruction or English-as-a-Second-Language instruction into teaching practices for core academic subjects.

In Florida, the Middle Grades Reform Act, which went into effect in May 2004, funds reading coaches for 240 middle schools. Although Governor Jeb Bush (R) announced grants of $16.7 million to support this effort, many policymakers will be paying close attention to this initiative in the hope that it will provide some guidance to other districts and states around the country.

Meanwhile, Back in Chinatown…
At Intermediate School 131 in New York City’s Chinatown, on a spring day towards the end of the school term, Bryce Bernards familiarizes his students with the format of recipes; features such as measurements, cooking instructions, ingredients, number of servings and required utensils are discussed. The children, quiet, intent, talk about how members of their families use recipes at homes.

Bernards then asks the children to superimpose their life stories onto the recipe framework. (What he’s aiming for, in his words, is to teach a lesson in “sustained metaphor, the genre of recipes.”) He offers details of his own background to get the youngsters started. He says his life has consisted of “One-fourth cup of overbearing, demanding parents. An uncle who didn’t want me to become a teacher. One can of Wentworth Avenue sauce.” (He explains that’s the address where he grew up.) “A bag of wild friends who lived on my block and played street games. Plus two World Series championships tickets for the Minnesota Twins, a big part of my childhood,” he informs the class.

The children respond in kind. One boy, for instance, offers the following: “One cup of my mother who watches out and keeps an eye on me when I get in trouble. Five packages of curiosity because I want to know everything. One cup of over-reacting parents.”

“Our identities are pretty complex,” Bernards observes.

The students then compose their recipes in more depth. During the class, literacy coach Stacy Fell-Eisenkraft circulates among the students, a reassuring presence for the children and for Bernards. The coach, who is also earning a doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University, not only works closely with teachers in her New York City middle school, but also assumes tasks ranging from ordering books to running after-school book clubs for the faculty. Fell-Eisenkraft may also help Bernards adjust to his new profession. As a young teacher, he and others like him across the country are vulnerable to the demands of a new job and drop out at higher rates than their more established colleagues; a University of Pennsylvania study indicated that as many as 50 percent of teachers leave the profession within five years. Literacy coaches can provide a support system that will help these younger faculty members cope with the challenges of their profession.

Bernards agrees that Fell-Eisenkraft is indispensable to his work. “She keeps me focused on what’s important,” he says. “For example, I may come in with a lesson that tries to incorporate three different skills, and she will help me narrow it down, which leads to more effective teaching.” He then goes on to talk about how he and Fell-Eisenkraft designed a lesson to accommodate the multiple-languages—Chinese, Spanish and English—spoken by the children in his class. “You saw Stacy writing on the board behind me,” he says. “That always helps in terms of the students being able to visualize the words.”

One advantage Bernards and Fell-Eisenkraft have in carrying out their teaching partnership is the support of those who run the school. “Our administrators are completely behind us,” Fell-Eisenkraft reports. “They realize, as I do, that the overall level of instruction is raised because of literacy coaching and that teachers and students really benefit.”

Her words are music to the ears of Jane Lehrach, the school’s principal, who often attends her school’s literacy coaching sessions. The veteran educator is justifiably proud of her school. “It’s a safe and peaceful place,” she says, adding that “respect” is the watchword at I.S. 131. She goes on to say that “education is a journey of growing, and literacy coaching, done right, is a manifestation of that philosophy.”

As she speaks, one of Bernards and Fell-Eisenkraft’s eighth graders passes on his way to his classroom seat. Lehrach lets her comments waft off in the air as another idea intervenes. “I like to say that every child has treasures. And what are your treasures?” she asks the boy.

“Books!” he exclaims, providing the answer Lehrach hoped to elicit. Although the youngster has come to love books, literacy coaches at I.S. 131 and other schools across the country know they must go beyond teaching a love of reading literature and help students develop reading strategies that will allow them to comprehend the complex information presented in their textbooks.

Summing up how literacy strategies such as coaching should be inculcated into teaching and learning, Sturtevant writes in her report, “Schools and teachers have the ability to base their instructional and curricular decisions on years of research related to the types of learning environments and day-to-day teaching strategies that best support students’ growth in reading, writing, and critical thinking. Schools and teachers can make a real difference in the lives of the adolescents with whom they work. The current challenge is to make this goal a reality in middle and high schools throughout the United States.”

Barbara Hall has written about education since she covered local school board meetings for a New England weekly newspaper some 25 years ago. Between then and now, she’s written on learning for publications including The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She also writes for children in the award-winning AppleSeeds magazine and is currently writing and illustrating a children’s book.