Table Of ContentDESIGNING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
IN LITERACY
SOLVING PROBLEMS IN THE TEACHING OF LITERACY
Cathy Collins Block, Series Editor
Recent Volumes
Multicultural and Multilingual Literacy and Language: Contexts and Practice
Edited by Fenice B. Boyd and Cynthia H. Brock, with Mary Z. Rozendal
Teaching All the Children: Strategies for Developing Literacy in an Urban Setting
Edited by Diane Lapp, Cathy Collins Block, Eric J. Cooper, James Flood,
Nancy Roser, and Josefina Villamil Tinajero
Conceptual Foundations of Teaching Reading
Mark Sadoski
The Literacy Coach’s Handbook: A Guide to Research-Based Practice
Sharon Walpole and Michael C. McKenna
Comprehension Process Instruction: Creating Reading Success in Grades K–3
Cathy Collins Block, Lori L. Rodgers, and Rebecca B. Johnson
Adolescent Literacy Research and Practice
Edited by Tamara L. Jetton and Janice A. Dole
Tutoring Adolescent Literacy Learners: A Guide for Volunteers
Kelly Chandler-Olcott and Kathleen A. Hinchman
Success with Struggling Readers: The Benchmark School Approach
Irene West Gaskins
Making Sense of Phonics: The Hows and Whys
Isabel L. Beck
Reading Instruction That Works, Third Edition: The Case for Balanced Teaching
Michael Pressley
Narrowing the Literacy Gap: What Works in High-Poverty Schools
Diane M. Barone
Reading Assessment and Instruction for All Learners
Edited by Jeanne Shay Schumm
Word Sorts and More: Sound, Pattern, and Meaning Explorations K–3
Kathy Ganske
Reading the Web: Strategies for Internet Inquiry
Maya B. Eagleton and Elizabeth Dobler
Designing Professional Development in Literacy: A Framework
for Effective Instruction
Catherine A. Rosemary, Kathleen A. Roskos, and Leslie K. Landreth
Designing
Professional Development
in Literacy
A F R A M E W O R K
F O R E F F E C T I V E I N S T R U C T I O N
CATHERINE A. ROSEMARY
KATHLEEN A. ROSKOS
LESLIE K. LANDRETH
Foreword by Ronald Gallimore
THE GUILFORD PRESS
New York London
©2007 The Guilford Press
A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc.
72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012
www.guilford.com
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rosemary, Catherine A.
Designing professional development in literacy : a framework for effective
instruction / Catherine A. Rosemary, Kathleen A. Roskos, Leslie K. Landreth;
foreword by Ronald Gallimore.
p. cm.—(Solving problems in the teaching of litercy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59385-430-0 ISBN-10: 1-59385-430-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59385-431-7 ISBN-10: 1-59385-431-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Language arts (Primary)—United States. 2. Reading (Primary)—United
States. 3. Effective teaching—United States. I. Roskos, Kathy. II. Landreth,
Leslie K. III. Title.
LB1529.U5R67 2007
372.41—dc22
2006032057
About the Authors
Catherine A. Rosemary, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Education and
Allied Studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. Before joining the university in
1995, Dr. Rosemary worked for 16 years in public schools as a special education teacher, read-
ing specialist, and director of curriculum and instruction. She currently directs the Literacy
Specialist Project, a statewide professional development initiative for improving literacy teach-
ing in preschools through grade 12, and is codirector of the Reading First—Ohio Center for
Professional Development and Technical Assistance in Effective Reading Instruction. Her work
has led to numerous research presentations and publications on the influence of professional
development on teacher learning and practice. Dr. Rosemary was instrumental in developing
the Literacy Specialist Endorsement, a newly offered credential available to teachers in Ohio.
Kathleen A. Roskos, PhD, a Professor in the Department of Education and Allied Studies at
John Carroll University, teaches courses in reading instruction and reading diagnosis. For-
merly an elementary classroom teacher, Dr. Roskos has served in a variety of educational
administration roles, including director of federal programs in the public schools and depart-
ment chair in higher education. For 2 years she directed the Ohio Literacy Initiative at the
Ohio Department of Education, providing leadership in pre-K–12 literacy policy and pro-
grams. Dr. Roskos studies early literacy development and learning, teacher cognition, and the
design of professional education for teachers, and has published research articles on these
topics in leading journals. She is currently a member of the e-Learning Committee and the
Early Childhood Commission of the International Reading Association (IRA) and President of
the IRA’s Literacy Development for Young Children Special Interest Group.
Leslie K. Landreth, MA, is Assistant Director of the Literacy Specialist Project at John Carroll
University, where she also teaches undergraduate reading courses as an adjunct instructor.
Before joining the Literacy Specialist Project in January 2000, she taught for 25 years in ele-
mentary schools and libraries in Michigan, California, South Carolina, and Ohio. Her work has
been driven by a passion for children’s literature, an interest in the English language, and a
desire to provide effective literacy instruction. Ms. Landreth’s current role with the Literacy
Specialist Project centers on the design and implementation of a literacy curriculum for edu-
cators in Ohio. Through her curriculum development work, she has made significant contri-
butions to statewide professional development in literacy.
v
Acknowledgments
No large-scale project is created and sustained without the dedication and hard
work of colleagues, supporters, critics, fans, and friends. Many educators at many
different levels helped to make the Literacy Specialist (LS) Project a reality in
schools and contributed to the content of this book. We owe them all deep thanks.
For their creativity and abiding belief in the LS Project, we thank Jane
Wiechel, Associate Superintendent of the Center for Students, Families, and
Communities at the Ohio Department of Education, and Sandy Miller, Executive
Director of the Office of Early Learning and School Readiness at the Ohio
Department of Education. They were there with us at the genesis of the project
and remain true to it still.
For their intellectual energy and considerable year-to-year effort, we thank
our university partners who implement the LS Project in their local schools. We
are grateful, especially, to our cofounders in those early, program-building days:
Eileen Carr, University of Toledo; Joyce Feist-Willis, Youngstown State Univer-
sity; Penny Freppon, University of Cincinnati; Kathryn Kinnucan-Welsch and
Patricia Grogan, University of Dayton; Kay Milkie, John Carroll University;
Sharon Yates, Ohio University; Belinda Zimmerman, Kent State University; and
Jerry Zutell, Ohio State University.
For their courage, commitment, and common sense, we thank our literacy
specialists, more than 400 of them at the time of this writing, who openly share
their ideas, wonderings, questions, suggestions, and critiques so that we all con-
tinue to learn what effective professional development is and what it should be
in our professional work.
We acknowledge our LS Project staff members for their dedication and
behind-the-scenes support for the project. And, for their diligence and skill in
helping us with the manuscript preparation, a special thanks to Deborah Nixon
and Therese Longo.
vi
Foreword
Ambitious, comprehensive, statewide, research based, content rich, and imple-
mentation focused—not many attempts to improve literacy instruction com-
mand these descriptors, but they are appropriate to Ohio’s Literacy Specialist
(LS) Project, the subject of this book.
Improving early reading instruction commands more attention and re-
sources than most areas of public education. In addition to some widely circu-
lated research reviews, there are thousands of articles and papers available on all
facets of reading—how to teach it, assess it, and help those who fall behind.
There are dozens of professional development programs competing for atten-
tion. The LS Project earned a full share of the spotlight.
This volume by Catherine A. Rosemary, Kathleen A. Roskos, and Leslie K.
Landreth represents more than a decade of effort—the work of the authors as
well as state education department officials, university faculty, district specialists,
teachers, students, and parents. The effort began when the state recognized in
the mid-1990s that far too many children could not read by the fourth grade. It
continued with the development of a statewide framework that was remarkable
for its comprehensiveness and theoretical sophistication. It was the product of
extensive stakeholder input, public comment, and numerous drafts and revi-
sions. The resulting framework (presented in Chapter 2) provided both a vision
of what Ohio needed to do so that all its students could learn to read and write
effectively, and an organizer for the work of planning, developing, implement-
ing, and assessing K–3 literacy education aligned with state standards.
One of the key components of the Ohio framework is ongoing professional
development of reading teachers. It is this component and its invention and
implementation by the LS Project that is described in detail in this volume.
vii
viii Foreword
Buoyed by optimism and hope, the LS Project team determined to rely on
theory, evidence, and professional wisdom to invent the literacy specialist sys-
tem, and on accountability to test and improve it. In the research and develop-
ment tradition of the Wright Brothers and other Ohio inventors, the LS Project
team invented, and built, and tested, and improved a professional development
system. They applied to themselves the tools of research and evaluation so that
continuous improvement was something they asked not only of teachers, but
also of themselves and their colleagues.
Those familiar with education history in the United States know that pro-
gram implementation is often an orphan left at the schoolhouse door. New poli-
cies, programs, standards, books, and materials are often trucked to schools and
figuratively dumped on the front steps. Surely, everyone assumes, the teachers
and principal will know how to translate expensive, innovative new methods
into better learning opportunities for students. Teachers make jokes about the
“fad of the year,” not because they oppose change, but because they are
supremely realistic about how much time and effort it will take to turn theory
into sound, consistent practice that improves learning opportunities for stu-
dents. Just about the time teachers figure out how to work effectively with the
now “old” fad, a new one is dropped at the doorstep, and the cycle begins again.
The implementation problem was all too familiar to the LS Project team
from their previous experiences rolling out promising programs that never
made it into the classroom. They were determined not only that the content they
intended that teachers acquire would be of the highest standard, but also that
they would hold themselves to a high standard in the design and construction of
an implementation system. They began by designing and building a structure
drawing on some remarkable resources available throughout the state.
Unless there is a sustaining structure, processes essential to teacher training
and development collapse. The LS Project used a network approach to construct
a statewide structure. Field faculty (university partners) and literacy specialists
(school-based partners) implemented a triadic model of (1) field faculty sup-
porting (2) literacy specialists supporting (3) teachers, in which the former sup-
ported the latter, and the latter provided approximately 6 hours a month of
training for teachers. Because Ohio has public and private universities located
around the state, the LS Project team was able to ground the new structure on
an existing one, which was critical to sustaining this ambitious effort. The set-
tings the partners were able to construct and sustain in school sites keyed the
success of the LS Project.
A critical, distinguishing feature of the implementation approach was the
specification of what the literacy specialists were to do when engaged with par-
ticipating teachers. To their credit, the LS Project team invented research- and
experience-based protocols to guide the specialists. Some object to the idea of
protocols in teaching and professional development. Certainly, coaching or con-
sulting of this kind always involves some art. But in the area of literacy instruc-
Foreword ix
tion and professional development the emergence of consensus protocols are a
hallmark of a profession:
Doctors don’t try to figure out a new technique or procedure for every patient
who comes to their office, they begin by using standard techniques and proce-
dures that are based on the experience of many doctors over the years. Nobody
considers this a way of doctor-proofing medicine, although they have a name
for the failure to use standard practices—it’s malpractice. The standard prac-
tices that all doctors (and other professionals) use contain the wisdom of the
profession. (Shanker, 1997, p. 36; italics in original)
The LS Project offers a substantial record of protocol use in a statewide compre-
hensive professional development program and is an impressive demonstration
of the benefits of protocols to ensure fidelity of implementation across many
coaches and sites.
The triadic structure was deployed in a way that initiated and sustained two
critical relationships. First, it fostered ongoing peer collaboration among teach-
ers and among literacy specialists and field faculty. Second, the structure sup-
ported leadership that created conditions for professional learning, protected
teacher development time, distributed leadership and responsibility, promoted
mutual accountability, pressed for and encouraged supportive policies and
structures, and integrated activities into a larger comprehensive change process.
Without stable settings in which work and learning take place, it is very difficult
to move beyond episodic events to sustained programs. Regrettably, times and
settings identified at school sites for teachers to learn are often hijacked by other
pressing and legitimate concerns and tasks—there is always more to do than
time allows, and unfortunately opportunities for teacher learning and develop-
ment are often lost. The thoughtfulness and foresight that anticipated the value
of these relationships is one reason the LS Project warrants the descriptors ambi-
tious, comprehensive, and implementation focused.
“You can’t teach what you don’t know.” This aphorism was sometimes for-
gotten in the 20th century when infatuation with teaching and learning strate-
gies waxed and concern with content waned. In the last decade, a new evidence
base has been developed that readdresses this imbalance. The LS Project team
infused all aspects of their program with content knowledge: research, the
evidence base for reading, theories of literacy development, pedagogy, English
language, and reading and writing strategies, among other content.
In American education professional knowledge for teaching is seldom col-
lected, stored, or shared (Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002). If it is shared, it is
in a haphazard manner:
The successes of [excellent teachers] tend to be born and die with them: bene-
ficial consequences extend only to those pupils who have personal contact with
the gifted teachers. No one can measure the waste and loss that have come
