Why?
Alabama has a long history of using literacy coaches in schools. Funding has shifted over the years to other state priorities. In 2019, the Alabama Literacy Act was passed, requiring schools serving Grades K–3 to have a reading specialist in place to coach teachers on reading and best practices in teaching literacy. Supporting teachers and students effectively and consistently across the state is the goal of the Alabama Early Literacy Project.
What?
The Region 7 Comprehensive Center (R7CC) team started work with the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI) team in 2019 by helping with the Alabama Literacy Act Implementation Guide. Partnering with the ARI team, each section was crafted to align with the Alabama Literacy Act. A follow-up guide was written for administrators titled The Alabama Administrator’s Organizational Guide, which maps out what the expectations are for administrators in K–3 classrooms. This guide includes reports due, administrative tasks, and which assessments should be administered within the year.
R7CC also assisted with the development of the Alabama Coaching Framework. This evidence-based framework includes contributions across various areas of expertise within the state department. The framework was created with implementation science in mind, and it incorporates elements of the Alabama Strategic Plan. The coaching framework is the foundation for the work of Alabama coaches, including English Learner coaches hired through the Alabama Literacy Act to support K–3 instruction, as well as math coaches and specialists from the Office of School Improvement.
In addition to the Coaching Framework, R7CC has supported ARI’s state and regional teams in the development of the Structured Student-Centered Coaching Practice Profile. The state identified eight research-based components that reading specialists use to effectively coach teachers and students in literacy. This initiative incorporates the research of implementation science and utilizes three districts to pilot the training on the practice profile. R7CC worked with the Department of Professional Learning to create Professional Learning Units for the administrators within the Implementation Zone/pilot districts. The state will use the knowledge acquired from the three districts and regional specialists to inform changes to the profile.
Impact?
The Alabama Coaching Framework has impacted the work in several departments at the state and regional levels. The framework guides state specialists in the delivery of coaching services consistently across the state. The Structured Student-Centered Practice Profile will impact the effectiveness and consistency of literacy coaching by the local reading specialists across the state. The components will serve as a systemic way of coaching and assist in identifying professional learning and support for new coaches and administrators.
Additionally, the state will have specific data points to measure the impact of coaching regionally and across the state. The R7CC team developed a tool to pull together coaching data from the Results-Based Coaching Tool, a tool local reading specialists use after the completion of a coaching cycle that gathers student data before and after the coaching cycle, along with teacher and coach reflections, standards addressed, and the process that the coach will use during the cycle. Evidence from the session prompted the state to add training on the Results-Based Coaching Tool as a purposeful document beyond compliance. The regional staff can observe how coaching is affecting learning across the state. The profile will be a guide to sustain the reading specialists’ work by providing guidance and support in the future.