Literacy Instructional Coaching
Teachers who have attended the Effective Reading Instruction for Students who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing (ERI-DHH) training are eligible to receive literacy instructional coaching during the school year. Coaching is designed to support teachers with their implementation of the critical components as informed by the Science of Reading (SOR) – phonological awareness & phonemic awareness, phonics (decoding & encoding), vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Through coaching sessions, teachers deepen their knowledge, skills, and confidence to effectively implement the critical components of literacy instruction and meet the diverse needs of their students.
Additionally, individualized coaching sessions provide teachers with strategies for:
- developing and extending students’ receptive and expressive vocabulary and language;
- differentiating instruction based on students’ language and developmental levels;
- adapting phonological/phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding & encoding activities depending on their students’ use of sound-based and/or visual-based strategies;
- improving students’ word reading, vocabulary, connected text reading fluency, and comprehension;
- monitoring student progress to ensure students are learning; and,
- increasing student learning through scaffolding, repeated practice, and structured error correction and modeling.
Each Coaching session includes these activities:
- Request: The teacher submits a coaching request identifying an area or area(s) of need. The request is made via the ERI-DHH Instructional Coaching Request Google Form.
- Pre-Observation Meeting: The coach and teacher meet to identify an instructional goal/need, discuss students’ characteristics & learning needs, and plan for meeting the identified instructional goal/need.
- Observation: The coach conducts an observation. The coach observes a live, in-person or virtually via Zoom, or a recorded instructional session.
- Post-Observation Activities: The teacher responds to reflection questions regarding the instructional session. The coach reviews the teachers answers and prepares feedback notes for a Post-Observation Meeting.
- Post-Observation Meeting: The coach and teacher meet to discuss the teacher’s responses to the reflection questions and the coach’s feedback notes. Modeling and role-playing of specific activities and strategies can occur to clarify and enhance instructional delivery. The coaching meeting concludes with a plan for teacher growth.
- Post-Coaching Documentation: After the coaching meeting, the coach provides the teacher with a written summary of the teacher’s responses to the reflection questions, the coach’s feedback notes, and the plan teacher growth.