Reading Apprenticeship

New National Reading Apprenticeship Facilitator Training Opportunity

Sam Peters

New National Reading Apprenticeship Facilitator Training Opportunity

by

Apply to join the 2022 cohort of Reading Apprenticeship Facilitators*.

Reading Apprenticeship is looking for experienced teachers and leaders to join the national cadre of facilitators. This is a unique opportunity to deepen your knowledge of Reading Apprenticeship, connect with colleagues, and lead professional learning for teachers across the country.

The Facilitator in Training (FIT) program is a blended in-person and online learning experience that will prepare you to lead Reading Apprentice institutes with middle and high school teachers. It includes a $1000 stipend and travel to Alameda, California for a summer learning session July 28-29, 2022. Details:

Applications are due by March 31. Please email Irisa Charney Sirott with any questions.

*Reading Apprenticeship facilitators work as independent consultants contracted through WestEd.

Register Now for 2022 Professional Learning Events

by

If you are seeking new ways to get your students reading and working with challenging, content area texts, Reading Apprenticeship is for you. In 2022 we will be offering both online and in-person events! Read more or register for any of the events via the links below. Not sure where to start? Check out our get started page or contact us.

Open to middle school, high school, and college educators of all subject areas:

  • Essentials I In-Person (Jun 28–30 or Aug 2–4) will introduce you to the framework and core routines you can use to develop students’ literacy and social-emotional learning skills.
  • Essentials I Online (Jan 11–13, Jun 27–29, or Aug 3–5) kicks off with three consecutive days of 2-hour synchronous sessions, and then continues with 1.5-hour monthly meetings throughout the school year.
  • Essentials II Online (Jun 27–29) will sharpen your content-area teaching and give you new ways to help your students become more aware of, and articulate about, their own strengths and challenges as they read and make sense of complex text.
  • Note that all online Essentials courses are highly interactive and combine synchronous and asynchronous work. Participants experience the kinds of text-based, collaborative teaching and learning they will enact with their students.

Asynchronous courses designed with college educators in mind:

  • Reading Apprenticeship 101 (Jan 17–Mar 6, Mar 14–May 1, Jun 13–Jul 31, or Sep 12–Oct 30) is designed to provide an introduction to the Reading Apprenticeship framework with practical classroom assignments to “make it real.” Guidance and feedback will be provided to you by colleagues in the course and by a facilitator with extensive Reading Apprenticeship and coaching expertise.
  • Reading Apprenticeship in College Writing (Jan 17–Mar 13 or Jun 13–Aug 7) will deepen your understanding of the Reading Apprenticeship framework, particularly the role of metacognitive conversation in the successful implementation of redesigned college writing courses.

Registration open now! Visit the links above or our services page to learn more. To learn about services at your site or course buyouts, contact our Partnership Development Director, Stephanie Patterson, at (310) 367-3892.

A note on federal funding:

As part of the federal relief laws passed by Congress in 2020 and 2021, financial support is available to districts and schools through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Funds. These funds offer schools and districts the flexibility to address their critical areas of need as they support their students, educators, and communities around various accelerated learning efforts. One area in which your leadership team can use these funds is to address unfinished learning through evidence-based professional learning frameworks, such as Reading Apprenticeship. If you are interested in leveraging this one-time funding to introduce teachers to the Reading Apprenticeship approach, please contact us.

Reading Apprenticeship Awarded SEED Grant

by

Reading Apprenticeship has been awarded a $3.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to improve subject-area teaching and learning at the secondary level in Arizona, Michigan, and Texas. The two-year grant (2021-23) from the department’s Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) program, enables WestEd to deepen Reading Apprenticeship teacher professional learning in three locations that were part of a 2018-2021 SEED grant project.

“This new grant will enable us to identify and support best practices for working with district, regional, and state leaders and teachers to sustain inquiry-based professional learning at the secondary level,” says Literacy Director Dr. Linda Friedrich.

Because the grant includes a qualitative evaluation that builds on a student impact study already underway, it also gives Reading Apprenticeship leaders a unique opportunity to learn more about how our teaching and learning strategies supported teachers and students during the COVID years in which adaptation was needed to accommodate online and hybrid settings.

The grant will support WestEd’s Reading Apprenticeship staff to work both directly with teachers, and through established local partners, with the aim of building local capacity and sustainability for enduring professional learning in districts serving diverse and low-wealth student populations. The project will engage teachers, students, and leaders via the following partnerships:

If you would like to learn more about the project, contact Associate Director Mary Stump at [email protected].

Julia Orzechowski, Facilitator

by

Location: Dearborn, MI

Years of Teaching: 12

If you had to describe yourself as an educator, what six words would you use and why?

Six words to describe myself as an educator are: patient, enthusiastic, consistent, attentive, thoughtful, and persistent.

I was drawn to the mindset that all students
can become readers. I tried out the routines
from Reading Apprenticeship little by little,
and I started to see results. I live within
the framework now.”

What drew you to Reading Apprenticeship?

I was lucky to take a teaching position with a district that values Reading Apprenticeship. After I attended my first training, I signed up to attend three more times in following years! I was drawn to the mindset that all students can become readers. I tried out the routines from Reading Apprenticeship little by little, and I started to see results. I live within the framework now.

What is your go-to Reading Apprenticeship routine?

My go-to Reading Apprenticeship routine is Think-Pair-Share.

Can you share a story about a time when you or a student had an “aha!” moment with Reading Apprenticeship?

One of many “aha!” moments I have experienced with Reading Apprenticeship came from shifting to a student-led classroom. As I facilitated more, the students had more opportunities. I remember a moment with my 10th-grade class when a student came up to the document camera to share a Talking to the Text sample from an article. Other students were learning from the schema this particular student brought to the article and then shared with the class. We all learned, and it meant so much more coming from a student who just happened to share that day.

If you could describe Reading Apprenticeship in a sentence, what would you say?

Slowing down to honor the framework pays off.

What are you reading right now?

I am reading The Book Thief with a small group of 6th graders, The Maze Runner with a small group of 7th graders, and Girl, Woman, Other on my own.

Learn from Reading Apprenticeship Practitioners

by

The Reading Apprenticeship Pandemic Lessons for Higher Ed Instructors summer 2021 webinar series was created in reflection of learnings made during the unique challenges of 2020. Three Reading Apprenticeship practitioners and college instructors volunteered to share helpful adaptations they made for their online classrooms: Tiffany Ingle, whose presentation is linked here, and Lauren Servais and Ed Ferrari, whose presentations are linked below.

Answering the Call to Be Culturally Sustaining: Designing an Introductory Sequence to Build Community Online

Presented on August 17, 2021 by Lauren Servais, English professor at Santa Rosa Junior College, 3CSN Coordinator, and Reading Apprenticeship Practitioner.

 

Digital Annotation in First Year Composition: Into the Pandemic & Beyond

Presented on August 31, 2021 by Ed Ferrari, Assistant Professor of English at Crafton Hills College and former reading tutor and TEFL instructor.