Hands On Heads Literacy Coaching 

“What’s been the biggest impact on your students?”

“What’s working… and what’s not yet? How do you know?”

“What might you do differently? Why? What might you keep the same? Why?”

“What would it look like to take this one step further?”

“Which part of this feels most actionable to try next?”

“This is the practice we’re focusing on across the team...”

“I can see that X is not yet impactful…”

“Here’s what this looks like in the classroom...” “This is the expectation for consistency...”

“Let me decide and model what this could sound like.”

“This is the next step we’ll all work towards...”

• Listening with intent
• Ensuring teacher autonomy (not to be lost)
• Paraphrasing and prompting
• Slowing the thinking down (think, literally, of a classroom think aloud)
• Letting the teacher contemplate. Productive struggle (productively- yes. Pauses = thinking)
• Co-constructing next steps
• Firm, but flexible (classic coaching!)

• Naming the focus clearly
• Working towards a common outcome
• Providing explicit direction
• Reducing ambiguity
• Aligning practice across classrooms
• Following up on implementation