Delia Coppola   Director, LitLife Connecticut

Delia is the Executive Director of LitLife CT. She is an experienced classroom teacher in grades K-6. A certified literacy specialist, Delia's experience teaching in District 2 in Manhattan and in Westchester County, New York, provides her with the background to work with teachers and administrators in all aspects of the comprehensive classroom model, including balanced literacy, curriculum development, administrative leadership and the reading and writing workshop. She is also an adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Education at Fordham University.

Delia's consulting practice runs the gamut from modeling mini-lessons to big picture planning. Some examples of her work include: modeling the implementation of readers' workshop in K-5th grade classrooms; exploring partnerships and purposeful conversations; modeling discrete mini-lessons in specific genre areas; workshops and study groups on introducing balanced literacy to teachers new to its practice; working with teachers to design customized time-lines for workshop scheduling in their classroom to alleviate time pressure obstacles; and guiding teachers in designing customized units of study for their grade levels.

In addition to hands-on, one-on-one work with teachers, Delia also oversees curriculum development teams engaged in broad-picture planning on a district-wide basis; conducts administrative walk-throughs of buildings with principals and other administrative leaders to assess where a school is with regard to its literacy program, and to design a plan for where it would like to be; leads mini-courses on designing comprehensive district reading plans and small group instruction; and trains literacy coaches to maximize their effectiveness.