Leadership for Literacy: Research-Based Practice, PreK-3 (Leadership for Learning Series)

The success of students almost always depends upon their mastery of literacy during the early years of school. This groundbreaking text demonstrates how the development of literacy during the crucial PreK-3 years is fundamentally related to school leadership. Principals, administrators, policymakers, and instructors will all benefit from the 20 years′ worth of research-based and tested information that Murphy compiles.

Leadership for Literacy features a comprehensive approach to studying the link between leadership and literary instruction. Four primary areas of scholarship―instructional leadership, quality instruction, school effectiveness, and successful reading programs―are examined.

This resource provides school leaders with the tools they need to:

• Achieve quality literacy programs through effective leadership
• Focus on the mastery of literacy among young children
• Influence the political decisions that affect literacy programs
• Prevent literacy problems in students before they lead to school failure
• Reach at-risk students and students of all levels and backgrounds

Leadership for Learning does more than just prove the connection between leadership and literacy instruction; it demonstrates how successful literacy programs can become a reality in all schools.

About the Author: Joseph Murphy is a professor of education at Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University. He is also chair of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC).

Joseph F. Murphy is the Frank W. Mayborn Chair and associate dean at Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University. He has also been a faculty member at the University of Illinois and The Ohio State University, where he was the William Ray Flesher Professor of Education.

In the public schools, he has served as an administrator at the school, district, and state levels, including an appointment as the executive assistant to the chief deputy superintendent of public instruction in California. His most recent appointment was as the founding president of the Ohio Principals Leadership Academy. At the university level, he has served as department chair and associate dean.

He is past vice president of the American Educational Research Association and was the founding chair of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC). He is co-editor of the AERA Handbook on Educational Administration (1999) and editor of the National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) yearbook, The Educational Leadership Challenge (2002).

His work is in the area of school improvement, with special emphasis on leadership and policy. He has authored or co-authored 18 books in this area and edited another 12. His most recent authored volumes include Understanding and Assessing the Charter School Movement (2002), Leadership for Literacy: Research-Based Practice, PreK-3 (2003), Connecting Teacher Leadership and School Improvement (2005), Preparing School Leaders: Defining a Research and Action Agenda (2006), and Turning Around Failing Schools: Lessons From the Organizational Sciences.