Last week, we sat down with Dr. Mary Schreuder from The Achievement Network to dig into the difference between research-based and evidence-based instruction — and what it looks like to build a truly data-driven approach to adolescent literacy. If you missed it, catch up here:
The Future of Adolescent Literacy Is Data-Driven
This week, we're continuing our deep dive into the Adolescent Literacy Wheel with the piece that holds everything else together. Because infrastructure gives us the system, accessibility gives every student a way in, and evidence-based instruction gives educators the tools to make every moment count — but none of it sticks without this: everyone rowing in the same direction.
This week, we're talking about collaboration, with a deep dive from Emily Russin, Adolescent Literacy Lead at the HILL for Literacy.
Adolescent Literacy Cannot Be Transformed by Isolated Effort
Not by one teacher working overtime to differentiate instruction alone. Not by one interventionist trying to close years of reading gaps independently. Not by one department carrying the full weight of literacy growth across an entire school.
Older striving readers don't move through isolated classrooms – they move through systems. And when those systems operate in silos — when instruction happens separately from intervention, when assessment exists apart from classroom practice, when professional learning operates independently from implementation — literacy support becomes fragmented. The result isn't a lack of effort. It's a lack of alignment.
That's the problem collaboration is designed to solve.
Collaboration Creates Coherence
At Storyshares, we believe the future of adolescent literacy must be collaborative at every level of the system. Because literacy transformation happens when fragmented efforts become collective action guided by a shared vision. True collaboration isn't occasional coordination or resource-sharing — it is the intentional alignment of people, systems, and practices working together toward a common goal.
That means aligning leadership structures, instructional routines, professional learning, intervention systems, and curriculum and assessment practices around a shared vision for adolescent literacy growth. When schools create systems that connect leadership, teaching, and learning around common literacy priorities, students experience more consistent and meaningful support — not because any one educator is working harder, but because the whole system is working together.
Literacy Improvement Must Become a Shared Responsibility
Too often, literacy intervention is treated as the responsibility of a small group of educators rather than a schoolwide priority. But adolescent literacy touches every classroom. Students are asked to analyze texts in social studies, interpret scientific language, synthesize ideas across disciplines, and communicate through reading and writing all day long. That means literacy improvement cannot exist in isolation from the broader instructional system.
Collaborative schools build leadership routines that support consistent instructional decisions, distributed leadership structures that maximize expertise across teams, and professional learning focused on implementation, coaching, and shared problem-solving. They create cross-functional collaboration between interventionists, classroom teachers, and administrators — and they build systems designed to sustain progress beyond individual initiatives or personnel changes. Sustainable literacy growth requires collective ownership — it cannot live with one person, one team, or one initiative.
Collaboration Strengthens Implementation
Even the strongest literacy practices struggle to create impact when implementation is fragmented. Schools need structures that allow educators to continuously learn from one another, refine instruction together, and respond collectively to student needs. That means grounding leadership decisions in evidence of practice rather than assumptions, examining observation data and assessment results collaboratively, and protecting time for intervention, coaching, and teacher collaboration within the school schedule itself.
Collaboration is not supplemental to literacy transformation. It is what makes transformation sustainable.
A Note for Leaders: Start With the Structure
If you're a secondary leader or literacy coach ready to move toward a more collaborative approach, the place to start is with structure. Collaboration doesn't happen organically in busy schools — it has to be built in. That might mean establishing a District Literacy Leadership Team that brings together classroom teachers, coaches, interventionists, and administrators around shared data and shared goals. It might mean using what already exists — data teams, PLCs, instructional rounds — and redirecting that time toward literacy as a school-wide priority. It might mean creating a Literacy Action Plan that includes all key players and meets consistently enough to build real momentum.
The goal is simple, even when the work is complex: make literacy a connected, continuous experience for students — not something that lives and dies with one teacher in one classroom.
Keep the Conversation Going
We went deep on all of this in Episode 6 of The Adolescent Literacy Podcast with Emily Russin from the HILL for Literacy — contributor to our Adolescent Literacy Vision Paper.
In Episode 6: It Takes a School, we cover:
- What a truly collaborative approach to adolescent literacy looks like — from the classroom to the district level
- How to make every teacher a teacher of literacy without overwhelming the system
- What teacher training looks like differently at the secondary level
- The concrete structures — Literacy Action Plans, District Literacy Leadership teams, data frameworks — that turn good intentions into lasting change
The Future of Adolescent Literacy Is Collaborative
Adolescent literacy is too complex to be solved through fragmented approaches. Schools need comprehensive systems that connect leadership, instruction, intervention, assessment, and professional learning into a unified effort focused on student growth. The future of adolescent literacy will not be transformed by isolated initiatives working in parallel — it will be transformed when educators, school leaders, researchers, interventionists, and organizations begin building literacy systems together around a shared vision for students.
Infrastructure gives us the system. Accessibility gives every student a way in. Evidence-based instruction gives educators the tools to make every moment count. And collaboration is what makes all of it sustainable.
Next week, we’re switching gears. We’re taking a break from “The Future of…” series to join the conversation on educational technology. We'll be joined by Julia Rivard, founder of Shoelace Learning, to talk about the role of technology and gamification in literacy instruction — and what it looks like to leverage both in service of the students who need it most.
Missed the earlier posts in our series? Catch up below:
Read: The Future of Adolescent Literacy is Infrastructural
Read: The Future of Adolescent Literacy Is Accessible
Read: The Future of Adolescent Literacy is Data-Driven