Literacy Coach Groups are small, intensive courses of study designed to support literacy coaches as they learn the same methods of staff development that the Project's staff provides. These close knit support groups require participating coaches to teach and coach collaboratively, write and share drafts of minilessons and plans for professional development, analyze transcripts of conferences and small group work, role play, study small group work, and develop curriculum and performance assessments together.

Coach groups meet approximately twelve times across the year. The first session is held at Teachers College. All subsequent sessions are held at one or more Project schools in our network. Project leaders may join groups on various days throughout the year.

This year we are offering different strands of coaching courses, organized by experience, content and on grade level. Our 2010-2011 topics include at-risk or struggling readers and writers, using data to inform instruction, deepening coaching methods and best practices, coaching toward deeper comprehension, and more.

Please Note: Literacy Coach Groups are only available in conjunction with our on-site staff development. To discuss your eligibility for future Literacy Coach groups, please write to Lisa Cazzola at lisa@readingandwritingproject.com.