Summer Reading List for Coaches

The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation Paperback

by Elena Aguilar
This comprehensive research and practice-based guide covers how to create a
coaching vision, build trust, listen well, ask powerful questions, and develop a work
plan. It also addresses coaching conversations and describes dozens of coaching
activities to develop an educator's practice. The Art of Coaching highlights common
challenges followed by creative solutions. It's filled with numerous practical tools:
rubrics, cheat sheets, and coaching sentence stems. The concluding section on
professional development is geared for coaches and those who supervise them. The
website, www.elenaaguilar.com, provides a wealth of additional tools and tips.
Advancing Formative Assessment in Every Classroom: A Guide for Instructional
Leaders
by Connie M. Moss and Susan M. Brookhart
For buildings that are hoping to improve formative assessments this is a great guide. One
chapter focuses on sharing learning targets and criteria for success, while another details
student self-assessment. Student goal setting is also addressed.
Focus on Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction
By Jim Knight
Video recordings of teachers in action offer a uniquely powerful basis for improvement. Best-
selling professional development expert Jim Knight delivers a surefire method for harnessing the
potential of video to reach new levels of excellence in schools. Focus on Teaching details:
Strategies that teachers, instructional coaches, teams, and administrators can use to get
the most out of using video
Tips for ensuring that video recordings are used in accordance with ethical standards and
teacher/student comfort levels
Protocols, data gathering forms, and many other tools to get the most out of watching
video

Inside Words by Janet Allen
We've learned a lot in recent years about the important role vocabulary plays in making meaning,
yet many teachers still struggle with vocabulary instruction that goes beyond weekly word lists.
Effective vocabulary instruction is particularly vital in the content areas, where the specialized
language used by insiders often creates a barrier to understanding for those new to the subjects.
In Inside Words, Janet Allen merges recent research and key content-area teaching strategies to
show teachers how to help students understand the academic vocabulary found in textbooks,
tests, articles, and other informational texts.
Each instructional tool is listed alphabetically along with its purpose: building background
knowledge; teaching words that are critical to comprehension; providing support during reading
and writing;
Notice and Note by Beers and Probst
In Notice and Note Kylene Beers and Bob Probst introduce 6 signposts that alert readers to significant
moments in a work of literature and encourage students to read closely. Learning first to spot these
signposts and then to question them, enables readers to explore the text, any text, finding evidence to
support their interpretations. In short, these close reading strategies will help your students to notice and
note.
Daily Five, The (Second Edition): Fostering Literacy in the Elementary Grades by Boushey and
Moser
The Daily 5 provides a way for any teacher to structure literacy (and now math) time to increase student
independence and allow for individualized attention in small groups and one-on-one.
Teachers and schools implementing the Daily 5 will do the following:
Spend less time on classroom management and more time teaching Help students develop
independence, stamina, and accountability Provide students with abundant time for practicing reading,
writing, and math Increase the time teachers spend with students one-on-one and in small groups
Improve schoolwide achievement and success in literacy and math.