| Literacy coaching has become a popular form of professional development in the United States and Canada; however, there exists only a limited research base for literacy coaching, particularly in the Canadian context. The purpose of this dissertation is to add to the body of research by investigating what literacy coaching looks like in practice, exploring the social relationships that exist in literacy coaching programs, examining how success is viewed in literacy coaching programs, and identifying barriers to literacy coaching programs and how these barriers can be overcome. Qualitative research methods, including observations, interviews, and document and artifact collection were used to provide a holistic picture of literacy coaching programs in 3 schools in northern Ontario. This study finds that literacy coaches spend a large portion of their time performing organizational tasks and, in contrast to the literature, did not generally participate in the observation and demonstration of lessons. Literacy coaches were viewed as peers to teachers and were not in power positions. Instead, principals took the position of enforcing change in the schools while literacy coaches acted in supportive roles. The three schools in the study viewed the success of literacy coaching by noticing an increase in professional dialogue, by the demonstration of commitment towards literacy coaching, and by seeing improvements in student achievement and teaching. A number of barriers existed for the literacy coaching programs such as difficulties with the teachers' union, the language barrier in second-language classrooms, the lack of experience at the kindergarten level, the need for further professional development for literacy coaches, the lack of time to coach, and the organization of the literacy coaching time. The schools were able to overcome some barriers, while other barriers were not easily surmountable and there appeared to be no imminent solutions. Issues raised in the discussion include the role of the literacy coach, organizing time for literacy coaching, the dynamics of power and resistance, and literacy coaching's impact on teaching and learning. This study has implications for theory and practice and also makes a number of practical recommendations for literacy coaching programs. |
