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Growing the Good Stuff

This ethnographic study reports on one elementary literacy coach’s response to high-stakes testing and her approach to support third- through fifth-grade teachers in a Title I school in Texas. Sources of data included field notes and observations of classes and meetings, audio/video recordings, and transcribed interviews. The findings illustrate how the literacy coach used her knowledge and beliefs about teaching reading along with her position of leadership to craft alternative responses to an environment that endorsed a skills-based approach to teaching reading and placed a strong emphasis on test preparation. Specifically, the literacy coach enriched the skills-based reading curriculum with reading workshop, supported teachers’ learning and growth with teacher-centered inquiry groups, and focused on language and authentic literature as a way of preparing students for the test. These findings suggest that the literacy coach played an important role in supporting teachers with negotiating the demands of a high-stakes testing environment and in ways that did not necessarily compromise the literacy coach’s beliefs. These findings also suggest the importance of a supportive school environment where teachers have a sense of community for support and professional growth.