Yolanda Harris, K-5 coordinator of elementary literacy, Gwinnett County Public Schools

Like many U.S. states, Georgia has recently focused on addressing early literacy through new policies. In 2023, as the state legislature approved sweeping reforms aimed at improving the quality of reading instruction, Yolanda Harris started her new position as a K-5 coordinator of elementary literacy at Gwinnett County Public Schools. A former special education teacher, assistant principal, and literacy coach, Harris is helping lead a districtwide transition to a high-quality reading curriculum.

To support this work, Harris enrolled in the Learning Forward Academy. She found the 2 ½-year learning experience to be transformative, allowing her to integrate and reflect on her rich and multifaceted experiences and then build on them to further systemwide improvement in student literacy. She will graduate with her cohort at the Learning Forward Annual Conference in December 2025.

What has helped you embrace georgia’s new early literacy legislation and support other educators’ literacy instruction?

Our district always uses data to drive our instructional decisions and professional learning, and the data showed us we needed to make a shift. Driven by legislation in Georgia as well as what’s going on in the nation, we moved toward the science of reading. We’ve had a lot of conversations with teachers, leaders, and people in the community about our new curriculum. The data showed we needed to do something different, especially for our multilingual learners.

We adopted the rigorous EL Education curriculum, which offers a structured literacy program and high-quality core instructional materials. Before that our district was a balanced literacy district, so EL was different from what our teachers had been doing. Some needed a little more time to embrace the idea but this has been a great shift. We are in year two of true implementation and our very first year for grades K-5.

Giving teachers the background knowledge and the “why” is important, because when you understand more about how kids learn and read, the why becomes clear. As a district we have considered all the different components teachers need so we can support them through this shift. To build foundational knowledge of science of reading principles we offered teachers a lot of options early on, including the Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) course (phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension), a multisensory structured literacy course, and professional learning with our district coaches to support the transition. We brought in reading experts such as Natalie Wexler and Jan Hasbrouck to present at our literacy institute. I’ve also worked alongside our team to organize and develop content for new-teacher orientation around the science of reading, and we have EL Education training for all new teachers during the summer.

It takes time to implement these changes. We lean heavily on feedback from our teachers and leaders, and my advice to other districts is to use feedback from your educators to meet leaders and teachers where they are. We want professional learning to be engaging, relevant, and collaborative, and we want teachers to go through the process of problem-solving. We respect the professional knowledge they bring to the table.

What signs of improvement are you seeing?

Teachers are becoming more intentional and confident in their literacy instruction, using data and integrating structured literacy practices into their teaching every day. In classrooms today you’ll find teachers thoughtfully applying the EL Education curriculum, modeling strategies, and becoming more comfortable as they deliver instruction.

The quantitative data shows the positive levels of growth in the schools we directly support, especially with early adopters. Showing a strong upward trend, reading proficiency increased in the 2024-25 school year for all students in grades 3 through 5.

Anecdotally, we’re noticing improvement especially in 5th grade. Some of the students have been in the curriculum for three years or nearly three years, and they’ve been learning with the knowledge-building focus and systemic and explicit instruction based on the curriculum’s scope and sequence. I think we are going to see more growth as we continue to strengthen our learning and implementation.

Describe the coaching and other high-impact supports you’re using to help educators implement the new reading curriculum.

Our team works alongside our language arts director to plan professional development and facilitate support for our teachers and leaders. We have eight specialists on our language arts team and three coaches who are an integral part of supporting implementation. Our coaches and specialists are in the schools, and they’re not only working with teachers and coaches but also working with the leadership teams, the principals, and the assistant principals.

We partnered with EL Education to plan and provide professional learning for our local school coaches who work in our schools, giving the curriculum developers input and letting them know where our teachers were, and we did some learning walks together to gather data. Leaning on EL Education helped us be successful, because we (the district administrators and coaches) were learning the curriculum as our teachers were learning it.

Supporting leaders and listening to their needs has been a big part of our success. We ask our leaders to share what’s going well with EL Education and what successes they’re seeing in the schools and in various grade levels and teams. We also work with them on goal setting and ask how we can help them set goals for next steps.

Learning Forward Academy has been an amazing journey because I have had the opportunity to work with other leaders across the United States and hear about their successes, learn about their problems of practice, and come together to use Learning Forward tools and resources. My problem of practice is around advancing literacy for all students. The logic model we use in the academy is modeled after the work in Joellen Killion’s book, Assessing Impact: Evaluating Professional Learning. The whole process has been helpful and organized so well. The learning is so rich that I always walk away feeling very energized.

There are also so many other ways of learning from Learning Forward, including the annual conference, where the sessions are great. For example, I attended a session about powerful professional learning practices and it was just what I needed. The session facilitators modeled what professional learning looks like when it respects adult learning practices. I also try to incorporate that here at Gwinnett. I am always asking, “How do adults learn?” and “How do we meet the needs of adults?” It is important to be intentional and provide time for reflection and problem-solving during professional learning opportunities.

That’s what Learning Forward has taught me to do, and it’s been very influential. After learning with the organization for years, I can’t think about anything in professional learning without thinking about Learning Forward. I’m always using the tools and strategies.

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