In this post, I interview a colleague who participated in a coaching cycle with me. Read below to learn about her experience.

Emily Zoeller, Instructional Coach                                       Valerie Klessig-Palm, Kindergarten DLI teacher

Can you explain the format and focus of the coaching cycle you participated in?

The format of our coaching cycle included choosing a goal for students and then the coach and teacher working toward that goal through weekly planning and in-class collaboration. (See blog post:  un ciclo de coaching) In this cycle, our goal was “our emergent readers will take on reading behaviors to move from level A to level B”.

How was a coaching cycle different from other types of professional learning?

This experience was student-centered and low-anxiety because it wasn’t directly focused on my progress as a teacher.  I came to realize that if students were making growth, it meant I was growing as an educator.

What aspect did you find had the greatest impact on your learning/practice?

Many components impacted my learning and practice, including the weekly planning sessions, reflecting on student work, my coach modeling strategies with my students, observing and later providing feedback. I especially enjoyed co-teaching, which made the initiative feel like a true team effort and that we were “in it together,” collaborating toward a shared goal.

Were there opportunities to improve any practices of teaching for biliteracy?

I learned how to explicitly teach for transfer of reading strategies. Reflecting on one child, I observed a gap between his abilities in Spanish and English reading. I realized I had to explain to him that while reading in English, we employ the same strategies we use while reading in Spanish. For example, we can check the picture in English books just like we do in Spanish books to see if what we read makes sense and is in line with the illustration. I’ve known about transfer of skills, but this experience made things more concrete.

Can you describe a time where you overcame an assumption you once held? What happened?

I’ve recently learned how to teach my bilingual learners how to read strategically instead of simply decoding text without thinking about it.  In my first two years of teaching, the main prompts in my toolkit were, “Sound it out,” “Look closely at the word,” “What sound does that letter make?” and, “Now, combine the sounds to say the syllable.” As authors Beeman and Urow (2012) pointed out in Teaching for Biliteracy, “Because Spanish is a phonetic language and students can learn quickly to decode, it is easy to focus on the success students are having in decoding without really looking at whether they are comprehending” (p. 88). I did not realize I relied so heavily on teaching the use of sounding out strategies until I participated in this coaching cycle and learned how to select tailored prompts that build meaning. (See Comprehension and the Bilingual Reader)

Can you give an example of what you learned about bilingual learners learning to read that you didn’t know before?

Beeman and Urow write about the link between oral language and literacy, and I’ve learned the importance of considering language structures when selecting books for my students. Our young readers need books with natural language structures as opposed to one word or phrase per page. My coach once brought in a book set a relative gifted her kindergartner. We read a few pages, and the language structures in the book were something like, “Fat was the cat”. We laughed, realizing how silly and inauthentic these sentences sounded. I am now careful about choosing a book that reflects and builds upon my students’ oral language.

What advice do you have for other teachers participating in this sort of professional learning?

My advice is to maintain an open mind, allowing the new learning to fuse with your wisdom and experience, ultimately enhancing your practice. We are all on a continuous journey to accomplish this!

What advice do you have for coaches of teachers like you?

My coach always focused on asset-based thinking, and it made me feel more positive about myself as an educator and trained me to focus more on what my students can do instead of what they can’t do. Also, please encourage your participants to keep the goal as student-oriented as possible, and they will quickly realize the gains made by the students mirror those of the teacher!