Developing Leadership for Literacy: The Learning Trajectories of Elementary Principals

• In Event: Organizational Dimensions of Instructional Leadership Implementation

Abstract

Many elementary principals lack knowledge and skills in leadership for literacy, a set of practices by which principals elicit effective literacy instruction and create schoolwide conditions to support children’s literacy development. In this study, we consider how elementary principals’ varying professional backgrounds – ranging from reading recovery specialists to high school science teachers – shape their learning trajectories toward leadership for literacy. Using interviews, observations, and surveys with 20 principals in a formal learning network, along with in-depth case studies on three of those principals, we identify four trajectories by which elementary principals develop their knowledge and skills in leadership for literacy. We then examine how those trajectories influence how principals enact instructional leadership in literacy.

Authors

• Kristy Cooper Stein, Michigan State University

• Yujin Oh, Michigan State University

• Melissa Usiak, Michigan State University