Leading School Literacy Improvement (Without Being an Expert)

Principals don’t need to be reading specialists to lead strong literacy instruction.

But they do need to know what to look for.

Classroom visits can leave some leaders with a feeling: “Something seems off, but I can’t pinpoint what.”

Specific questions can change that.

Three Questions That Reveal a Lot

During your next literacy observation, look for:

1. Is there cumulative review?

Are students practicing previously taught patterns, or only today’s lesson?

Reading development depends on repeated exposure over time. Literacy research recommends that students should ideally practice a new phonics pattern over 70 times across several days (Wolf, 2015).

2. How much practice occurs per minute?

Are students actively responding and reading, or mostly just listening?

Learning to decode requires many successful attempts, not just listening to explanations. Research shows students need frequent, repeated practice (about 1.8 opportunities per minute) to build strong reading and writing skills effectively (Fien et al., 2015).

3. Was the sound explicitly modeled?

Did the teacher demonstrate how to produce the phoneme (sound)?

Students benefit from hearing and seeing how sounds are formed before practicing them. Studies indicate that when teachers explicitly teach the articulatory features of phonemes, children make stronger connections between sounds and letters (Castiglioni-Spalten & Ehri, 2003). 

Why Specific Questions Help Leadership

You don’t need to have all the answers to help your teachers. Even just a few research-backed tips can make a big difference.

Specific observations allow:

• productive coaching conversations

• targeted professional learning

• calmer staff discussions

Leadership improves when feedback becomes observable instead of subjective.

Good instructional leadership begins with precise noticing.

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