ABSTRACT
While coaching as a professional development model is ubiquitous in schools across the United States and is becoming a focal point for change in nations around the world, it is still a relatively new innovation in school improvement. Its roots can be traced to the 1920s and 1930s when reading professionals were first tasked with working directly with teachers and "coaching" them on instructional improvement. The call for coaches grew in the 1980s and the 1990s with the need for literacy coaches—in particular—increasing as literacy become the core of educational reform policy. The number of reading coaches, however, swelled significantly with the passage of the No Child Left Behind legislation in 2001, which provided funding to help support teachers' use of effective reading practices in their classrooms, suggesting that the use of coaches was one avenue for such professional development. Professional development is typically characterized by an opportunity to increase teacher understanding of content and pedagogy.
