This book focuses on what school leaders need to know and understand about leadership for
learning and for learning to read in particular. It brings together theory research and
practice on leadership for literacy. The book reports on the findings from six studies that
followed school principals from their involvement in a professional learning program consisting
of five modules on leadership and the teaching of reading to implementation action in their
schools. It describes how they applied a range of strategies to create leadership partnerships
with their teachers pursuing eight related dimensions from a Leadership for Learning framework
or blueprint. The early chapters of the book feature the use of practical tools as a focus for
leadership activity. These chapters consider for example how principals and teachers can
develop deeper understandings of their schools' contexts how professional discussions can be
conducted with a process called 'disciplined dialogue' and how principals might encourage
approaches to shared leadership with their teachers. The overall findings presented in this
book emphasise five positive positions on leadership for learning to read: the importance of an
agreed moral purpose sharing leadership for improvement understanding what learning to read
involves implementing and evaluating reading interventions and recognising the need for
support for leaders' learning on-the-job.
