Core Values

• We are committed to equity. We want all students to have the support and opportunity to access a rigorous and engaging curriculum. To ensure this literacy equity, it is important that students work with teachers who understand the critical role of literacy in content-area learning.
• We believe there are powerful ways to build on adolescents’ and adults’ knowledge and experience to help them become more successful readers of academic texts. We know that when teachers make particular changes in their content-area instruction, literacy, learning, and engagement improve.
• We believe in the power of collaborative inquiry to equip teachers and students with the intellectual tools they need to develop a critical, reflective stance toward their own teaching and learning, the identification of problems, and the development of solutions.
• We are committed to teacher professionalism. We believe that teachers continue to grow when they can build on their current knowledge and expertise in a professional community that provides frequent opportunities for reflection and support.
• We are committed to an ongoing program of research that serves the dual purposes of informing our professional development practice and enabling us to contribute to the national dialogue on what works to advance literacy learning.
• We are committed to a strong organizational culture: one that is responsive to learning from our colleagues in the practitioner, research, and policy communities; that values individuals’ initiative and contributions to collaborative work; and, that supports staff in balancing work with other aspects of our lives.

Our history of transforming instruction for equitable literacy and proven outcomes

Reading Apprenticeship was first developed in the 1990s when a few secondary teachers and researchers in San Francisco began working together to find new ways to deepen student learning. The field had many interventions for elementary students, but few supports for older students and content-area teachers who grapple with more complex texts. Additionally, the existing solutions were most often focused on either academic or non-cognitive factors, as though they are independent of one another! The integrated approach to teaching and learning that this group developed became Reading Apprenticeship. Over the years since, WestEd and a host of teachers, foundations, and government agencies have invested in this approach so that Reading Apprenticeship remains a vibrant, continuously improving community of practice.