Are We Preparing Teachers for Literacy Leadership?

All teachers must be literacy leaders in their classrooms and schools. Recent concerns surrounding teacher quality and literacy teacher preparation prompted the current inquiry, which examined the diverse ways in which literacy teacher educators cultivate literacy leadership among preservice teachers. The authors used a one-shot qualitative research design and applied understandings related to distributed leadership and teacher leadership as theoretical lenses. Sixty-five respondents participated in the current inquiry, and data were analyzed using a three-level classification diversity analysis. Three themes emerged during data analysis: Two addressed specific preparation techniques for literacy leadership that occurred in university contexts and community and professional contexts, and the third drew attention to the inadequacy of preparation efforts with literacy leadership. A discussion of findings for each theme is provided, as well as implications and recommendations for literacy teacher educators and teacher preparation program administrators.