Why "Big Literacy Gains" Require Bold Leadership

If there's one truth every elementary principal knows, it's this: reading changes everything. It's the skill that unlocks every other skill, the passport to possibility.

But here's the hard part. Big, lasting literacy gains don't come from small, safe steps. They come from bold leadership.

Bold leadership means refusing to accept "good enough" when it comes to reading outcomes. It's looking at your school's data with clear eyes, naming the gaps, and rallying your team around a shared belief that every child can and will read on grade level.

It's not just about adopting the latest program or attending another training. It's about setting a vision so strong and clear that it pulls your teachers, specialists, and families forward together. It's about creating the conditions where high-impact instructional practices aren't optional; they're the norm.

Bold leaders are willing to…

• Challenge the status quo when it isn't producing results or data remains stagnant.
• Invest in teacher capacity through meaningful, professional development, coaching, and collaboration.
• Stay relentlessly focused on evidence-based practices in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
• Protect time for reading instruction like it's sacred, because it is.

Planning a 90-Day Literacy Leadership Sprint

Most leaders are familiar with creating longer, strategic plans. These plans are important and necessary. The benefit to writing a shorter 90-day plan helps teams see success more quickly and makes it easier to monitor progress toward the larger goal.

If you want to see a measurable shift in one semester, try this 90-day sprint:

As you take the Literacy Leadership Sprint Self-Reflection and you identify areas where you are not ready, identify actionable steps you can take to support your readiness. One of those steps could be to name a person to support you in that area. Literacy Sprint Free Tool

Bold leadership is about doing the hard, high-visibility work of keeping literacy front and center, not just when it's time for a literacy curriculum review. Big literacy gains aren't an accident. They're the outcome of leaders who decide to go big and bring everyone with them.