The power of one-to-one coaching: Preparing pre-service teachers for the early childhood literacy classroom

Abstract

This article focuses on a shift in the author’s approach to teaching a literacy course to a coaching-based model after observing pre-service teachers “struggle” to implement the teaching practices during on-site fieldwork with a kindergarten, first-, or second-grade child partner. The author discusses how she provided more timely feedback and instruction by coaching the undergraduate students who were taking a course she taught while the students were working with an elementary child partner and preparing a running-record assessment. Coaching provided the pre-service teachers with a deeper level of understanding of specific literacy practices in the early childhood classroom, and it afforded them the opportunity to reflect on the objective of the literacy practice in a way that let them better use it during their own teaching.

I am a teacher-educator at a small public liberal arts college in New York. This colloquium reflects on literacy teaching methods I utilized to coach pre-service teachers who were students in a course I taught so they were prepared when entering the field to implement reading and writing instruction that would support their elementary students. The focus of this piece is a discussion of my teaching practices exemplified through my lessons and subsequent coaching on the running-record assessment. The context of the instruction is a literacy methodology course. This course is structured as a clinically rich course, meaning it was a partnership with a local school district, allowing pre-service students to work with teachers and children in kindergarten, first, and second grades. I was on-site with the pre-service teachers to support and supervise their literacy instruction. The undergraduate students will be referred to as pre-service teachers and the elementary child partners as child partner(s).

The pre-service teachers were required to design and write lesson plans to support the child partners’ reading and writing. The lessons were crafted based on the course content. For many pre-service teachers, this course was their first time working in an elementary school and, for most, it was their first time preparing and implementing lesson plans. Almost immediately, I received the following feedback when I asked about their concerns teaching reading and writing: “I was concerned about what reading lessons to teach my partner. I did not know how to find out what [the child] could actually do.”

It was clear that the pre-service teachers were nervous about the mechanics of how to teach a child to read and write. Recognizing the pre-service teachers’ concerns as well as my observations, notes, and reflections on their teaching, I modified my teaching to meet their needs. Below, I use the example of the running record to show how I coached the pre-service teachers by modeling instruction and giving direct feedback while they were working with the child partner.

Coaching as a form of teaching

After a few weeks, I noticed that the pre-service teachers were not effectively implementing the running-record assessment. For example, they were not able to put it into practice in the way that I had taught, demonstrated, and supplemented with the course readings. Rather, they were coming up with their own ways of implementing this reading assessment that did not properly assess their child partner. I realized that I had to modify my teaching practice to use more direct one-to-one coaching; I needed to either directly model the instruction or support their understanding of the assessment (Mraz et al., 2008).

Running records are a reading assessment used by many districts in the vicinity of the college. The running record is a tool developed by Clay (1979, 2003) in order for educators to document a child’s use of meaning, structure, and visual cue systems while reading. While in the field, I observed the pre-service teachers paying careful attention to the words that their child partner read. However, they had neglected some of the following when conducting running records: (1) some pre-service teachers had not previewed the book(s) before assessing the child partner, and therefore were focused on the meaning of the text rather than the child’s oral reading; (2) many pre-service teachers were not attentive to the child partner’s body language during the reading, as suggested by the running record, and, in addition, had not noticed if their child partner looked at the illustrations to help make meaning of the text; and (3) a handful of pre-service teachers had not prepared comprehension questions to accompany the book in advance and were making up questions on the spot. For those pre-service teachers who did prepare comprehension questions, many wrote questions that were in the form of a “yes” or “no” answer, rather than requiring their child partner to respond through more detailed answers.

After discussing these points during our formal class, it became clear that the running record was more complicated to implement than the pre-service teachers initially expected and took more direct coaching than I realized. I decided to observe the pre-service teachers conducting a running record with their child partners, and I would provide specific and immediate feedback. Before the child began reading, I asked the pre-service teacher to show me the running record and comprehension questions. While the child partner was reading for the assessment, I would observe the pre-service teacher and the child partner and take notes. After the child partner finished, the pre-service teacher and I discussed his/her observations and I supported his/her understanding of the assessment by helping make connections to what the child partner did while reading.

Acting as coach

When coaching the pre-service teachers, my goal was to make visible what their child partner was doing as a reader. For example, one second-grader began his oral reading and was very expressive, paying attention and commenting on the illustrations, but by the second half of the book, he had lost stamina and began making errors when reading words that he had read accurately during the first half of the book. This is not something that is on the assessment form, so the pre-service teacher did not pay attention to the change in her child partner’s reading, but when made aware, she decided to try a different-leveled book to see if there was a difference in the child’s reading stamina. When I worked with another pre-service teacher, I observed her child partner, a first-grader, race through the oral reading without looking at one illustration and then struggle with the comprehension questions. The pre-service teacher initially thought her child partner did not remember what she had read. However, once we discussed what her child partner was doing when reading, she realized that the comprehension questions were also connected to the illustrations. After our discussion, the pre-service teacher decided to plan future instruction around paying attention to the illustrations.

Reflecting on the experience

After working with this class of pre-service teachers, I asked them to reflect on being coached through the running record in this more direct way. The majority of the students found this guidance and coaching valuable and supportive. One student wrote the following: “After being able to do [the running record] again with you, I was able to see how it works more clearly. It makes it easier to see and learn when you were supporting me.”

Direct coaching provided the pre-service teachers with a deeper level of understanding of teaching practices. Coaching could not take the place of the course readings or the classroom instruction, but it served as an invaluable support for pre-service teachers, especially at the beginning of their education coursework, because it provided them with structured, hands-on, and timely feedback. It enabled me, as the course instructor, to see what the pre-service teachers were taking in from the readings and classroom lessons, and provide support around areas that they may have not focused on when implementing the teaching practice with their child partner. Moving forward, I plan to integrate this form of direct coaching into my teaching practices when working with pre-service teachers on developing their own teaching methods for the classroom.