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Through collaborating in different ways with various content area teachers, the reading specialist can serve as a resource to both teachers and students in high schools.

In 1990, a suburban Pennsylvania school district in an affluent community near Philadelphia hired me to teach approximately 60 of the 1,200 students who attended the high school. My assignment was to address gaps in the comprehension skills of these students through direct instruction. During the 5 years I taught this course, colleagues often shared their concern about the reading weaknesses of additional students they taught. Their comments, along with overall declining performance scores on state reading assessments, made it clear that reading improvement of a much broader scope was needed. The challenge was how to meet the broader reading needs of the entire school population with only one reading specialist on staff.

The opportunity to explore this situation arose at the beginning of the 1995-1996 school year. Communicating his desire to promote collegiality by encouraging teachers to collaborate so as to further both student learning and professional growth, the principal of the high school released me from my teaching responsibilities to collaborate with content teachers. He noted that because of my nonthreatening, diplomatic interactions with staff and because of my understanding of the dynamics and interrelatedness of the teaching and learning process as a reading specialist, I could promote his vision of the school as a learning community (Barth, 1990).

I was left, however, to determine for myself the best way both to structure this new role and to evaluate its outcomes. There were no road maps available for me to follow because there was nothing in the literature about such a role for a reading specialist at the high school level; I had to function in this new role while at the same time creating it. Because of my years of teaching experience, my background in reading, and with knowledge from many recent graduate courses in the area of curriculum and instruction, I realized that the framework of this new position had to be based solidly on the concept of collaboration. In any form, collaboration is sharing, using, and reflecting on people's insights and expertise in order to improve pedagogical practice so as to promote student learning. While the focus is on improving student learning, collaboration sparks ideas between colleagues, invigorates these professionals, and ultimately improves their teaching.

My approach: A partner, not an expert

In beginning my efforts to collaborate with colleagues in paired relationships, I felt it was necessary that they not regard me as an expert rendering advice. Instead, I needed to be considered a partner in improving the learning of all students, one who complemented the teacher's knowledge of content with knowledge of the learning process that I possessed as a reading specialist. Costa and Kallick (1993) described a similar role and characterized it as being a "critical friend." In valuing the work of colleagues, I hoped to share my teaching perspective while considering relevant approaches to student learning.

With this clear goal in mind, I distributed a letter to the faculty at the beginning of the school year, clarifying my new role and inviting staff members to collaborate with me. Of necessity a teacher's response had to be voluntary. We had to be coworkers, equal partners in an activity that by its nature is accomplished with a common effort and involves an ongoing openness to ideas. Collaboration requires freedom of choice to be most productive.

Although reasons for collaboration varied, the process became relatively consistent:

1. The colleague (a content teacher) identified in writing the reason for working with me.

2. 1 met with the content teacher and discussed strategies to deal with the teacher's concern,

3. The content teacher selected the strategy that was most comfortable and appropriate for his or her classroom setting.

4. 1 fulfilled the teacher-selected option for me to do any one of the following: model a teaching strategy, demonstrate a learning strategy, participate as a student, or observe the content teacher and offer feedback.

5. The content teacher and I shared reactions to the executed strategy, confirming what went well and refining the strategy to improve student learning.

6. The content teacher executed the revised strategy in a follow-up lesson.

This format is based on the elements or norms that affect school improvement and reflects the degree to which a culture is collaborative (Saphier, 1985). Specifically, the effective characteristics are providing tangible support, offering recognition and appreciation of teachers' efforts to improve and to change, involving colleagues in decision making, extending trust and confidence in them, and referring to knowledge bases and not to personal style when collaborating.

This last characteristic is a pivotal one that the reading specialist is uniquely qualified to provide. The instructional framework for promoting reading development is equally effective for learning in all of the content areas, including history, English, science, or math.

The "before, during, and after" reading format is valid for all of the subjects in the curriculum. Every teacher can design lessons to promote the use of reading strategies that prepare students for reading, help them to interact with text to construct meaning while they are reading, and enable them to extend meaning after they finish reading. For example, after formulating the goal of the lesson, the teacher can then select or create instructional strategies that activate students' background knowledge of the subject. One effective technique to elicit background information is having students complete the What I Know column of the K-W-L procedure (Ogle, 1986). After students have had an opportunity to share orally what they have written, they are in a stronger position to generate questions and list them in the Want to Know column, thereby setting their own purposes for reading. During reading, as students discover the answers to their questions, they note them in the Learned column of the K-W-L format. Finally, students may conclude after they finish reading the selection that there are additional questions they want answered, thereby extending their response to the text.

This specific example of a knowledge-based approach is well understood by reading specialists and can easily be related to the subject area and to the cooperating teacher in a collaboration. Additional approaches familiar to reading teachers for improving student learning and comprehension include previewing the meanings of the lesson's key vocabulary words, instructing the class in the various methods of notetaking to help make students active learners, and purposeful structuring of small-group settings.

During the first year I enjoyed the opportunity to interact with so many of my colleagues, who stimulated my thinking as I hope I did theirs. The length of time spent working with a teacher or other member of the staff was determined by what was needed to achieve the goal of the requested collaboration. The range of time spent extended from one or more class periods to a few weeks and even to an entire school quarter, and it may have involved sharing one or all of a colleague's assigned classes, depending on the focus of the consultation. The number of staff involved by department that year was a total of 34, distributed as shown:

English 8

Social studies 2

Science 4

Math 3

Special education 4

Health 2

Art 1

Challenge 3

Library 1

Counseling 1

Social services 1

Administration 4

Teachers sought collaborative support for the following reasons:

Desire to learn how to individualize help, deal with large class size, and handle students' comprehension and decoding problems.

Need to learn most appropriate techniques for including the special learner.

Concern over poor notetaking skills and awareness of multiple reading levels within one class.

Need to make directions/questions/discussion more direct and concrete, less abstract.

Desire to develop a thematic unit.

Need for concrete suggestions for parents who want to help their child improve in reading.

Need for supplemental materials.

Need for reading specialist to work with small student groups involved in a special project, to increase comprehension and facilitate research.

Desire to develop more interactive teaching skills.

Learning to collaborate

Perhaps the best way to describe my daily activities is to provide details of some of my collaborations with colleagues during the year.

A master English teacher needed help in convincing his ninth-grade honors students that their reading ability could be improved. Working together we helped to change the values and beliefs that these students held about their reading ability. We did this in stages, and by using many different strategies. Initially, for about 3 weeks, I taught the class. I first involved the students in a discussion of what was involved in the reading process and how people came to understand what they read. Then it was time to challenge their claim that they knew all there was to know about reading.

The English teacher and I divided the class into cooperative groups, and after a surface reading of a short story asked each group to respond to a different set of factual questions about the reading. All did very well. Then we posed inferential questions to the groups, and asked them to reread specific sections of the text in order to develop answers. As anticipated, some could do this more easily than others. In the third round of reading, we gave them critical thinking questions that required them to synthesize information from the story and apply it to new situations. Most could not handle this level of assignment. This demonstration literally proved to them that they did have more to learn about reading.

A special education teacher asked for help with her reading program. We discussed her program and I made suggestions, which I demonstrated with her students. We decided to focus on strategies to help students learn that they needed to pose questions, make predictions, and use contextual clues including illustrations and headings to improve their comprehension. We extended this focus to include reading a textbook, a newspaper, and a short story. The thrust was to change the students from passive to more active learners.

Another colleague, recently hired to spearhead a new ninth-grade program for 10 special students, voiced interest in working with me in the early part of the school year. While not designated as special education students, these 10 nevertheless had difficulty fitting in socially with their peers. Their integration into the high school community was limited and controlled; she taught them English and social studies, had them for home room, spoke on the phone daily with their parents and other professionals who interacted with them, and counseled them frequently.

The opportunity eventually came to work with these students in their classroom, although not until the latter part of the school year. They were learning about the culture of China, and each student had been assigned a cultural category like religion or geography to research. Their teacher saw a need for them to learn the correct process for writing a research paper. Specifically, she wanted them to learn techniques for determining an approach to their pursuit of information, how to organize and to analyze the data, and how finally to write the report. Once a week I would come to their classroom and offer suggestions that addressed these broad areas, sometimes teaching the whole class, sometimes working with individuals. I shared ideas with the teacher about discussions to have with the students and projects to do with them. in particular, several students learned how to use graphic organizers and how to take notes along with improving their research papers.

Good teaching practices as they relate to the most fundamental teaching tool, the textbook, were on the mind of one of the science teachers. In our after-class conversations I discussed the features of the textbook chapters and pointed out many things to him. Specifically, we talked about how, by examining the chapter's illustrations, students could generate questions about the new material that could motivate their reading. In the absence of motivation, this activity would at least give students a purpose for reading, essential for increasing comprehension. We also looked at the end-of-the-chapter questions that contained vocabulary or phrasing that would prevent many students from responding because they would not know what the question was asking. The usefulness of bold headings in sensitizing students to transitions and how the headings could be helpful in easily locating information also were part of our talks.

The science teacher often took notes during these discussions, asked questions, and retold what he had understood to be sure he had absorbed these new insights. Although our collaboration was based on only a month's observations of his first-period class (a general science class consisting of mixed grades) and while we did not participate in a lengthy collaborative relationship, he evidently felt that he had absorbed vital concepts during the reflections and discussions following each class. He revealed a degree of confidence that now allows him to use the textbook more comfortably in preparing for all of his classes.

A history teacher was concerned about nothing less than learning to transform her professional practice from being teacher centered to pupil centered. Rather than be discouraged by what some colleagues might view as a daunting task, she invited me to observe her classes and to comment, as a colleague, on her teaching methods. She also invited me to model strategies recognized to increase student comprehension. She wanted to update her teaching skills, and so was willing to listen to my perspective as a reading specialist, to observe the teaching techniques I volunteered to demonstrate, and to reflect with me on the outcomes as she integrated new approaches into her teaching. Because our collaborative relationship lasted for 5 months, during which time I attended and for the most part observed her two classes 4 days a week, we had an opportunity to do many new things together. Unlike the science teacher, however, my history colleague did not have a preparation period we could use to discuss a day's lesson. Our exchanges took place either in the hall as she walked to her second class or in the evenings on the phone, in conversations that often lasted an hour.

The topics discussed ranged widely, and they included her adjustment to increasing noise levels in the room whenever students engaged in cooperative learning, the need to identify first the purposes in teaching content before developing lessons to accomplish these outcomes, and behavior management issues that seemed to persist with certain students. She picked up on prereading activities and on ways to turn a lecture into a group activity that is pupil centered, not teacher centered. I helped her devise ways to make students think critically, and presented the value of a rubric to grade term papers fairly. I encouraged her to use illustrations and editorial cartoons to exemplify issues and eras. I demonstrated the effect of preparing question sheets before showing a movie.

A faculty member who is almost as much of a department unto herself as I am, and who often is a teacher within her domain, is the librarian, Our collaboration occurred when I joined a conversation she was having with a ninth-grade history teacher who was scheduling her class for an orientation session in the library. The session's purpose was to communicate the rules of the library to the students and to prepare them for a future library visit to learn about computer research programs. The librarian was open to hearing my ideas for making the first meeting with the students an interactive one and to incorporating her library assistants into the presentation. She also agreed that a student booklet had to be created so that students would have something concrete to use during the computer lesson, and as a reference after the session.

In meetings that occurred over 4 weeks, she and I planned the orientation sessions, all of which I attended, and later critiqued the content and method of presentation. The orientation booklet that she developed and asked me to critique became the focus of many of her comments regarding the outcome of our collaboration. The issue of reading levels triggered another outcome for the librarian and the students. I was able to help her select some books recommended from professional journals and from recent conferences I attended.

To provide training that would enhance high school reading tutors' skills, I conducted a workshop prior to the tutors' meeting with their young charges. This session lasted about an hour, and the coordinator of community services reported that the students "seemed to get a better sense for how to tutor more effectively." The students were not getting that much guidance and leadership from the organizations in which they worked, so they turned to the coordinator, and he in turn came to me.

While these summaries of the responses to the pivotal questions provide a survey and analysis of the major part of my collaborative work, this discussion would not be complete without reference to my involvement with the ongoing ninth-grade collaborative team, an interdisciplinary group of colleagues consisting mainly of English and social studies teachers. In initial meetings during the spring of 1996, we as team members formulated our goals. The primary goal was to help students make a smoother transition between middle school and high school. To that end, during the summer of 1996 the team identified skills and behaviors the students needed to succeed in high school, and we then agreed to mutually reinforce them in our respective classrooms throughout the school year.

To assess the success of this first year's effort, I volunteered to develop a student questionnaire that reflected these skills and behaviors. Students would respond to the questionnaire at the beginning of the school year and again at the end. The results of this measure would help the team and the administration learn to what extent their attempts had succeeded in acclimating students to the high school community and to the rigors of its academic life.

From my perspective as the reading specialist, I frequently tried to bring the learner's interests to the table, and to that end, for example, offered my opinion of the new English and social studies texts to be adopted. I tried also to focus teachers on their purposes for teaching specific content so as to align evaluation with that purpose. I offered suggestions for dealing with the diversity of students in their classrooms and urged teachers to construct a summer reading assignment that was direct and that provided an example of a completed assignment done satisfactorily. My contributions as a resource to this group, while not measured quantitatively, nevertheless are reflected in the accomplishments of the ninth-grade collaboration to date.

As a result of this survey of my work with the staff, I believe that one can see clearly the potential of someone in my position making a significant contribution to the development of collaboration in a high school. While the role of an agent of collaboration should not be confined to a reading specialist, the advantage of selecting a teacher with such a background is evident.

Benefits of collaboration

The benefits of my collaboration with colleagues to improve the reading and learning skills of all of their students were numerous. These colleagues, when queried at the end of the school year, reported positive outcomes relative both to their teaching and to student learning. Their reported results reflect both tangible, concrete benefits as well as intangible, intrinsic outcomes. For example, that science teacher in whose class I had worked for a month said this:

I have a clearer understanding of how a textbook can be an effective teaching tool when all of the book's resources are used, for example pictures, bold type, section reviews, et cetera. Some students who avoided reading the textbook are now using it as an effective reference book.

The history teacher with whom I had collaborated for a semester cited specific changes in her pedagogy as a result of our collaboration:

Instead of getting up and lecturing on a topic, I'll ask questions to elicit information that they knew before, to find out what they knew coming into the concept... and by having students review pictures, and go over them, talk about them, and I asked them many questions about the pictures, it elicited a lot of critical thinking responses.

These teachers and others also cited as benefits of collaboration the following: being able to employ these strategies in the noncollaborative classes they taught, using the two teachers in a collaborative relationship to individualize learning, and creating and using new assessment tools to measure student achievement. These specific and tangible outcomes occurred as a result of the collaborative relationship with the reading specialist. As noted by Hargreaves, Earl, and Ryan (1996),

It is unfair, unrealistic and ineffective to expect or insist that teachers change their teaching dramatically, in a short space of time. But it is fair, realistic, and likely to prove more effective if we expect teachers to commit themselves to continuous improvement as a community of colleagues, and to experiment with new teaching strategies as part of that commitment. (p. 158)

The intrinsic benefits of collaboration mentioned by staff were also numerous. That English teacher whose ninth-grade honor classes I had cotaught for several weeks perceived a connection between the outcome of collaboration and the outcome of formal evaluation:

Collaboration opens each teacher to challenge his or her own assumptions, values, approaches to teaching. I think that's always good. It seems to me that's what formal evaluation ought to be doing. It ought to be opening the possibilities where anyone can grow. And I think that is those very same ideas, and ideas are what teaching is all about. When you approach each individual's learning, it's the very same kind of thing: to open, to broaden, to extend, to help grow.

For this English teacher, the value of collaboration is the same for both teacher and student; the process challenges all alike and presents them with the possibility of continuous improvement.

Like the English teacher, the special education teacher made comments about the results of our coteaching the new reading class that applied both to herself as well as to the students:

Collaboration gave me a bolstered sense of what I was doing in the classroom, that it wasn't something I was just making up, that it was being shared with the reading specialist, someone who was trained in what I had been working on. Students got feedback from more than one person; they got to look at different teaching styles. They also got to look at different learning styles, because the reading specialist and I had different styles of learning and teaching.

The special education teacher remarked further that while support and validation were anticipated and important outcomes of collaboration for her, an even more valuable offshoot was an enhanced reflective process:

Collaboration forces you to reflect on your own practice... and true change and true growth really doesn't happen unless you are reflective. You may make a decision to make some changes, but if you don't reflect on everything you do, it will not become part of your teaching practice.

Although the outcomes they cited were to some extent different, the special education and English teachers nevertheless agreed that the major benefit of collaborative sharing is the reflection that in turn leads to positive changes in behavior. This changed behavior, whether in teachers or in students, is learning. For teachers, the learning can improve teacher practice; for students the learning can improve skill development. In either case, reflection creates learners, be they teachers or students. Collaboration brings a broad array of personal and educational benefits to both students and teachers that can transform the traditional system of a school.

Benefits of the readin? specialist's collaborative role

Regardless of whether I had worked with colleagues for months, weeks, or only occasionally, their reactions to the benefits of collaborating specifically with a reading specialist clustered around three areas. The first area focused on reading as understood by most people, and involved both skill and comprehension acquisition by students. The remarks of the special education teacher are illustrative:

I've seen their skills, not only in this particular class, the reading class, but also in their other courses because I do get to see them outside of this room. Their oral reading fluency increased; they were much easier to listen to. They understood more of what they themselves read and what others read. That was documented in this classroom by question sheets that we answered at the end of each chapter. I also was able to see the students taking other exams and doing other homework assignments where it was reflected that they had indeed learned to question before they read, as they read, and after they read with the skills learned in the reading course.

Through collaboration with the reading specialist, the special education teacher learned how comprehension occurs, and then taught her students comprehension strategies they could use to enhance their learning. The comments of an experienced teacher also demonstrate how skills she learned will help students improve their learning:

The reading specialist gave me ideas about discussions to have with the students, projects to do with the students. In particular with the graphic organizers, several students learned how to take notes in their classes, and that's something I'll definitely teach, and am planning to as an opening unit to both English and history classes next year before the students go into a classroom and take notes.

Even if viewed only from this traditional stance, as the reading specialist collaborator I have the opportunity to contribute to the overall literacy development of students. Time taken at the beginning of the school year for me to teach or reinforce notetaking skill (instead of my assuming that students possess this skill) would signal an expectation that students will actively participate during future lectures or readings. This in turn would result in more active learners. Helping both teachers and students to become more critical and efficient users of textbooks should increase the probability of more effective teaching and enhanced learning. Sensitizing teachers to the reading levels of written materials that could be problematic for some of their students would prevent frustration and alert them to needed adaptations to encourage and ensure learning. These are only a few of the outcomes that are likely to result from the pairing of a reading specialist and a content teacher, which the teachers themselves recognized as being valuable.

The second area identified by colleagues related to instruction, with some key staff recognizing that "reading" meant more than skills and comprehension and that it encompassed communication, learning styles, and the learning process. Those who acknowledged this felt that this unique knowledge and perspective, when shared with colleagues, had the potential to transform the current teaching practice of many teachers. The science district coordinator explained the instructional benefit of the reading specialist's collaboration with content teachers:

I guess I perceive the reading specialist as having tremendous potential because you deal with one of the basic cross-cutting skills. And because I know that reading also deals with much broader issues than just reading. It's communication; you deal with learning styles. just to deal with subject area, you deal with so many other things, like instruction. Instruction is much more important for you than for some of the other teachers. They think that knowledge is more important; you are more of a process person. So, there's two cross-cutting things. I think the strength of reading teachers is that it's learning process, a major domain that you deal with, and reading, and they cross over.

The science district coordinator's remarks relative to improved learning through collaboration with the reading specialist were echoed by the building principal:

Well, regardless of what we talk about in schools regarding the changing nature of learning assessment, a great deal is still based upon information that's acquired and its use, and a lot of that, of course, relates to literacy. And I see a reading specialist who knows a lot about the acquisition of language and the use of language and getting meaning from text as being able to help classroom teachers to understand those issues, and by understanding those issues to help their students, in some cases directly teach them how to get meaning from text, how then to do something with that meaning in order to organize it in a way that provides meaning for them, then to answer new questions that weren't originally in the text.

The principal acknowledges that the particular knowledge a reading specialist has relative to the comprehension of language in all its formswhether through listening, speaking, reading, or writing-is information he would like shared with all teachers. He sees the possibility for this information to transform teaching practice as teachers integrate learning strategies with their pedagogy.

The third area to appear in the responses of colleagues was that of team building or liaison. Since I have an open, flexible schedule, I am able not only to work with colleagues in their classrooms and with individual students, but also to attend meetings and share my perspective. A case in point was my being invited to attend the meeting of the science and mathematics departments because I could quickly apprise them of the efforts to date of the ninth-grade English/social studies teachers-known collectively as the "ninth-grade collaborative." These teachers are paired to promote an improved teaching/learning environment. They have a common planning period, meet as a group once a week, and also meet departmentally. I am a member of the collaborative and serve as a resource to them by regularly attending the latter two meetings. Being the link between the two groups, I can not only provide information to one group, but also open communications between the groups in the future, and possibly provide the basis for more extended interdisciplinary work. Because reading is identified as a "cross-cutting skill," some colleagues felt that a natural contribution for me would be to serve among many groups as a "team builder."

A resource for teachers and students

In addition to my collaborative work as a reading specialist with content teachers, there were others with whom I collaborated. They included a high school counselor who asked me to test one of his students at the request of the boy's parents. Not only did 1 test the student and speak with him about the results and the implications for improvement, but in a letter to the boy's parents narrated essentially what I had said to the student himself. On another occasion, in response to a letter from the father of a senior, the principal asked me to work with the young man to improve his study skills, notetaking ability, and test-taking skills. After meeting with him on a tutorial basis for a few months during his study halls each week, and prior to the student's graduation, I wrote a letter to his father apprising him of the efforts that had been extended on behalf of his son. The principal was appreciative, and commented in a note to me that "by keeping parents informed of our efforts with the students, we help to complete a circle of support that is essential to the success of schools and their mission."

This circle of support is a reference to the entire educational community that consists of students, school staff, parents, and the school board. The principal, along with many others in the school community, is interested in the school addressing its mission as it is reflected in the district's strategic plan. in order to do that, he has begun cultivating a collaborative school culture, one that reflects shared values and beliefs, where there is a "we" instead of an "I" mentality (Sergiovanni, 1993). Although this complex task takes time, successful efforts to nurture collaborative cultures (where teachers discuss teaching, plan and teach lessons together, evaluate their efforts, and are open to experiments) will have a positive impact on Student achievement (Little, 1982).

The principal is doing his part to plant the seeds of change so that good cultures grow (Sergiovanni, 1993). In my role as a resource in the building, I support his efforts by helping teachers focus on the teaching and learning process. My response, coming through the lens of a reading specialist, brings to bear the unique framework that guides the approach to learning to which most reading specialists subscribe. Reading specialists are informed by theories and research related to language acquisition, literacy, and learning. our feedback to colleagues would always be to encourage more active participation of students through strategies for instruction that reflect a "Before, During and/or After concept as an organizing structure" (Lytle & Botel, 1990, p. 35).

These new understandings basically mediate the argument between those who suggest that education should focus on knowledge acquisition and those who believe that the production or the process of learning should be emphasized. Arguing that process is just as important as content, Costa and Liebmann (1995) presented compelling reasons for teachers concerned about "covering the curriculum" to modify their stance. They pointed out that knowledge is so rapidly increasing that it is doubling every 5 years. "If students are to keep pace with the rapid increase in knowledge, we cannot continue to organize curriculum in discrete compartments" (p. 23). Instead of having students concentrate on absorbing endless, isolated facts and concepts, they recommend that the teacher be selective about the content, distinguish between important and unimportant information, and teach content that will facilitate connection making and discernment of patterns. Teachers, they suggested, need to emphasize meaning making and help students to learn how to do this independently. "Learners need to discover that they can be self-referencing, selfinitiating, and self-evaluating-that their capacity to comprehend comes from within" (p. 23). Sensitive to those who would accuse them of "dumbing down the curriculum," Costa and Liebmann clearly stated their position:

Our recommendation is not that content be undervalued but, rather, that content be rethought as means, not ends. We must value content because it enhances the development of processes, and judiciously select content because of its generative qualities. (p. 24)

1 have the opportunity, therefore, as a high school reading specialist serving as a resource, to be a change agent (Freire, 1993), someone from within the school organization who can help teachers examine their own practices and generate strategies that will enable students to comprehend more and to see learning as a perpetual endeavor. While not being the only influence in helping the educational culture evolve into that of a collaborative society, the high school reading specialist in a resource role to both colleagues and students nevertheless makes a significant contribution toward that end.

As a result of surveying and analyzing the responses of colleagues to my work with them, I see clearly the potential of someone in my position making a significant contribution toward the development of collaboration in the high school. judging from my work with teachers across the disciplines and from dealing with a continuum of requests involving support for enhancing teaching and learning for both teachers and students, it is evident to me that the reading specialist can readily contribute to fostering and developing collaboration schoolwide. That the staff spoke of positive outcomes from their collaborations, and that they also communicated confidence in the process of collaboration for the future, should be encouragement enough to recommend this role for a reading specialist in every high school's effort to improve learning.