Anne Bayetto

Leadership and Literacy

This book focuses on what school leaders need to know and understand about leadership for learning, and for learning to read in particular. It brings together theory, research and practice on leadership for literacy. The book reports on the findings from six studies that followed school principals from their involvement in a professional learning program consisting of five modules on leadership and the teaching of reading, to implementation action in their schools. It describes how they applied a range of strategies to create leadership partnerships with their teachers, pursuing eight related dimensions from a Leadership for Learning framework or blueprint. The early chapters of the book feature the use of practical tools as a focus for leadership activity. These chapters consider, for example, how principals and teachers can develop deeper understandings of their schools’ contexts; how professional discussions can be conducted with a process called ‘disciplined dialogue’; and how principals might encourage approaches to shared leadership with their teachers. The overall findings presented in this book emphasise five positive positions on leadership for learning to read: the importance of an agreed moral purpose; sharing leadership for improvement; understanding what learning to read involves; implementing and evaluating reading interventions; and recognising the need for support for leaders’ learning on-the-job.

Effectiveness of Preschool-Wide Teacher-Implemented Phoneme Awareness and Letter-Sound Knowledge Instruction on Code-Based School-Entry Reading Readiness:

This study investigated the effect of preschool-wide, teacher-implemented, phoneme-focused phonological awareness (PA) and letter-sound knowledge (LSK) instruction, on raising code-based school-entry reading readiness for children with Spoken Language Difficulties (SLD) and Typical Development (TD), when supported by weekly coaching by trainee speech-language pathologists. A total of 90 4-year-old children participated, whereby 50 children, inclusive of 13 children with SLD, received 10 weeks of preschool-wide, teacher-delivered, phoneme-focused PA and LSK instruction. In all, 40 children, inclusive of 10 children with SLD, continued with the usual preschool program. Post-instruction, children in the experimental condition performed significantly higher in phoneme awareness, LSK, and early decoding compared with control children. Children with SLD in the experimental condition performed significantly higher in phoneme awareness and LSK, but not in early decoding, compared with control children with SLD. Overall, preschool-wide, teacher-implemented, phoneme-focused PA and LSK instruction can support code-based reading readiness skills for children with SLD and TD.

PALL and Student Learning

This chapter considers the evidence related to changed student achievement which is evident in schools embracing the Principals as Literacy Leaders (PALL) Program. It commences with the truism that inside the school gate, teachers have the greatest level of influence on student achievement, but it acknowledges that principals play a vital role in supporting them. The chapter then explores student learning in literacy, especially their engagement in aspects of the BIG 6, their attitude and achievement in reading, and their improvement journeys as presented in the six studies, demonstrating the dependence of this achievement on changed teaching practices. In particular, it highlights ways in which teachers, with the support of their principals, became more informed about processes for assessing and analysing quantitative student performance data at the individual, class and school level, complementing this with the assessment of qualitative evidence of improvement in student work samples. It also highlights a diversity of internal school processes for identifying, documenting and responding to differences in students’ reading abilities. Underlying these diverse processes, however, is evidence of the PALL view that the common moral purpose is improving children’s literacy.

Schools Finding Alternative Ways to Engage Families and Communities in Children’s Learning

The overall findings from the PALL studies show that despite principals and teachers making site-specific changes to teaching practices and the learning environment designed to improve student outcomes in reading, engaging and sustaining the support of families remains a difficult, but not insurmountable, problem to resolve. This chapter first discusses how the PALL work with principals began to disrupt a deficit discourse about disengaged parents such that alternative strategies for building sustainable relationships between families and schools became a serious component of change. It then explains how PALLIC introduced such a strategy in the form of a school-based Indigenous Leadership Partner working between the school and families to build dual capacity for families and schools to work with rather than against each other. Key to such a strategy is the recognition of the respective strengths of schools and families to support children’s learning, albeit differently, an understanding that as it develops further could segue into a new discursive practice of shared leadership between schools and families for children’s learning.

The PALL Approach

In this chapter we explain how the Principals as Literacy Leaders (PALL) Program was developed using relevant research literature as the source for a series of positions underpinning its design. Five positions are explained: The centrality of the moral purpose of leadership; what it takes to learn to read; how reading interventions are planned; what shared leadership involves; and the importance of support for leaders learning on-the-job. Following an elaboration of these positions, the design of the PALL Program is explained. We show how five linked professional learning modules: (i) Leadership for Learning, (ii) Learning to Read, (iii) Gathering and Using Data, (iv) Planning Reading Interventions, and (v) Evaluating Interventions were coupled with between-module tasks supported by leadership mentors over a 2-year period. A series of criteria drawn from the research literature on leadership learning is then used to critique the quality of the ‘time-rich’, context-related modular design (Dempster, Lovett, & Fluckiger, 2011). The chapter concludes with a description of the studies accompanying each of the six PALL Program iterations highlighting their research questions, the data gathering methods employed, where, with whom and how.

Leadership for Learning Research

In this chapter we describe the research into leadership for learning which was used as the platform for the initial and ongoing development of the Principals as Literacy Leaders (PALL) Program. We commence by reviewing studies undertaken in the first decade of the present century with a particular interest in a number of influential meta-analyses. This work is supplemented by confirming research carried out more recently. The results of the review are brought together as a framework or ‘Blueprint’ identifying eight dimensions of leadership activity known to help link the work of school leaders with student learning. These dimensions isolate and describe important connections which provide a foundation for the positions taken on leadership, and leadership learning elaborated in Chap. 2.

Professional Learning for Both Leaders and Teachers

In this chapter we consider two main aspects of how the PALL Program contributed to a better understanding of supporting the professional learning of leaders and of teachers. In the first instance we consider how the PALL Program supported leaders to better understand reading and how to support teachers to do this well. Consideration is given to the learning that occurred from the PALL modules themselves, where principals’ content knowledge about reading and how to teach it well was addressed. The learning that occurred during the modules was further supported and extended by, on the one hand, the use of literacy leadership mentors who provided ongoing contact and support to principals in the periods between the modules and, on the other, the professional learning communities established, sometimes initiated by the mentors, but in other cases, developed naturally by the participants themselves. Finally the case study action research was used as a means of providing feedback to those schools that were involved. The chapter also considers how principals used the knowledge from PALL to support teachers in their ability to assess student learning in reading and make decisions based on that assessment and ultimately to take responsibility for and leadership in the reading program themselves.

Establishing Positive Conditions for Learning

In this chapter we consider the conditions for learning that principals must consider and address if reading achievement is to be sustained. It considers how school resources, including time, materials and curriculum decisions, might be aligned in ways that support the reading program of the school. It considers the physical, social and emotional support required by students if they are to do well, including the physical plant of the school and how it is decorated, the safe, pleasant and trusting environment that is developed by the principal and staff, and the need for celebration as a means of encouraging higher levels of activity. The chapter addresses how having a consistent supportive policy environment, the development of teamwork across the school and establishing a culture of high expectations in the school are important factors in supporting high levels of student engagement and achievement. The chapter also considers how the external environment impacts on schools and how the leader needs to understand how this works to ensure positive connections, but also, in some respects, needs to shield the school from it as well.

A Focus on Curriculum and Pedagogy

In this chapter discussion focuses on how teachers responded to what their principals took from participation in the five PALL professional learning modules. Discussion focuses on how decisions were made about schools’ reading priorities and the factors that influenced their choices i.e., composition of their student cohort, evidence and data gathered from a range of assessment processes, principals’ preferences, teachers’ content knowledge, and teachers’ pedagogical confidence. Further, examples are given about how reading priorities were enacted by participating teachers at the classroom level. Tensions that arose for teachers in their planning, programming, and instruction are considered and examples of their reflections about involvement in the PALL Program are highlighted. Arising from these considerations is affirmation of the role and impact of principals in the everyday teaching of reading.

Looking Back to Look Forward

In the final chapter we summarise what has been found through the Principals as Literacy Leaders (PALL) Program research overall. We start by providing two case studies, one of a successful PALL school and one that was less successful and we explore some of the reasons why this occurred. We point to the confirmation of its five design principles and to a series of issues which we argue should underpin professional learning for school leaders concerned with literacy learning and achievement in their schools. On the basis of our findings, we advocate the bringing together of generic leadership processes with significant curriculum content knowledge if leaders are to make significant differences in intractable learning problems wherever they are encountered. We also affirm the need for much greater attention to be given by school leaders to the relationship between teachers, children and parents in learning to read. This is particularly so where children live in difficult economic and socio-cultural circumstances. We note that it is encouraging that the program has been offered in almost all Australian states, and in both government and non-government school systems. Finally, the research has shown that the program has a high level of acceptance in schools, that the frameworks offered make sense to school leaders and teachers and that the resources provided are seen as valuable to practitioners pursuing reading improvement. We end with an overall summation of the conclusions reached from the research findings and a consideration of future research opportunities.