Principal, January/February 2015

While the Common Core and other new college- and career-ready standards have reinvigorated English Language Arts and reading instruction— boosting elements such as text complexity as well as critical thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills—the purpose of reading broadly and deeply remains the same. The authors of “Diving In,” which leads this issue’s focus on literacy and reading, describe the purpose of reading as “deeply understanding a text and then doing something with it.” This issue of the magazine focuses on the principal’s role in leading a schoolwide effort to help students achieve deeper levels of understanding, preparing them for lifelong success.

As with any school initiative, the principal’s role is key, especially in creating a risk-taking culture and fertile environment for implementing new literacy strategies. This is an element that this issue’s feature authors all describe as essential. “Diving In” authors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, for example, in their piece on text complexity and deep reading, describe a schoolwide approach to implementing close reading in each classroom. Principals can set the expectation that each teacher promote consistent close reading by, for instance, paying particular attention to how texts are selected. Principals can also facilitate the development of a schoolwide annotation program that students can use from year to year.

Establishing a culture of reading also emerges in Aradhana Mudambi’s article on vocabulary instruction, as well as in Ann M. Martin and Kathleen R. Roberts’ article on the librarian’s role in working with principals to instill schoolwide digital literacy. Both articles focus on the importance of building a reading-rich—or “word-rich environment,” as Mudambi calls it—which is something that only a principal can do. The goal of such a setting, according to Mudambi, is to create the conditions where students “are independent readers, expert inquirers, competent test-takers, and lifelong learners.”

Approaching this issue from the perspective of arts-integration and developing 21st century skills is NAESP Executive Director Gail Connelly’s interview with NAESP President Mark White and National Art Education Association President Dennis Inhulsen. Their discussion on the intersection of new arts standards and college- and career-readiness standards provides principals guidance on how to leverage expertise in their buildings at a time when educators might feel overburdened with new standards and initiatives. “When you look at the arts standards, especially the creating, presenting, and responding categories, it’s easy to see the connections to the language arts standards,” said White. “Principals have to take advantage of the fact that they have specialists in the building in these areas [such as art teachers]. Allow them to work with the rest of the staff to integrate these standards. Let them be the leaders that they are.”

White and Inhulsen, who both lead schools with pre-K programs, also connect the dots of why integrating the arts can be a successful literacy strategy for early learners, and can be a hallmark of high-quality preschool programs. The third installment of the Strong Start series, which focuses on aligning early learning communities, outlines policy and research perspectives on the principal’s role in aligning pre-K through third grade. As always, I hope that you enjoy the issue. To facilitate sharing it with your colleagues, please use the form on page 11 to send them a complimentary issue.

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