Using coaching to increase preschool teachers’ use of emergent literacy teaching strategies

This single-subject study assessed the effects of in-classroom coaching on early childhood teachers’ use of emergent literacy teaching strategies. Teaching strategies were grouped into clusters related to oral language and comprehension of text, phonological awareness and alphabetic principle, and print concepts and written language, with coaching being applied to each cluster separately. The coaching process included two primary components: a brief initial meeting to introduce teaching strategies in the cluster, and semi-weekly observation with follow-up discussion using data collected during the observation. A third, booster component was added when the teacher did not achieve a pre-established criterion. Participants were five early childhood teachers, three in child care programs and two in public school pre-kindergarten programs. The intervention phase lasted approximately 6 weeks for each teacher. Results indicated that this approach to coaching was effective for increasing the number of teaching strategies that teachers used in each cluster. Individual differences among teachers are discussed, and implications for future research and practice are explored.