Reading Apprenticeship

Reading Apprenticeship Featured in EdWeek

Education Week | Special Report

Research & Publications

Reading Apprenticeship Featured in EdWeek

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We’re thrilled to share that a recent EdWeek article, “What Happens When Every Teacher in a School Has the Tools to Improve Reading?” features Reading Apprenticeship. The piece is part of a larger special report on Disciplinary Literacy.

EdWeek reporters interviewed several teachers and leaders, as well as WestEd staff Misty Sailors and Mary Stump. The story showcases the success of teachers and students using disciplinary literacy routines in Rich Township, IL, and Clarkston, MI, school districts. Fawn Phillips of Clarkston and history teacher George Vlahakis of Rich Township, describe how they see their students’ work accelerate and deepen with Reading Apprenticeship.

Vlahakis describes the benefits of a whole-school approach:

“Before the Rich Township district turned to a whole-school approach to disciplinary literacy, Vlahakis said he had already been teaching his students how to read, write and think like a historian. It used to take him three months to teach freshmen how to read, annotate, and think about a nonfiction text in the way that someone working in the history field would. But now that students are learning parallel strategies in their other classes, Vlahakis said students are getting comfortable and confident at a faster pace.”

And which of us doesn’t strive for the results articulated by Phillips who persisted with the Reading Apprenticeship framework and literacy routines over time:

“It took probably until my fifth year of doing it that a student sent me an email from college saying, ‘The strategies that you taught me, the things that we developed, I’m still using in college because it gets a lot harder, and the reading is not easy.’”

By implementing Reading Apprenticeship, districts like Clarkston and Rich Township are fostering a culture of advanced teaching and reading comprehension that benefits students in every subject.

Read the full EdWeek article here.

Interested in learning more?

Visit the Reading Apprenticeship Our Services page to explore resources, professional development opportunities, and see how Reading Apprenticeship can transform your school!

New College Publication and Online Conversation

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Join college faculty, leaders, and Reading Apprenticeship facilitators in an online conversation hosted by the editors of the recent special issue of the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching.

Nika Hogan and co-authors Magruder and McCormick authored an article that is part of the issue conversation, and for a limited time you can read it here: Texts, Tasks, and Talk: A Social Learning Pathway to STEM Literacy, Engagement and Belonging (Dec. 2023). Their article presents a community of practice and designed to support California State University and Community College STEM faculty implement active, equity-centered pedagogical changes. Preliminary findings from their work suggests that participants experienced meaningful value, suggesting potential for overcoming the entrenched culture of lecture-driven instruction and inspiring culture change in STEM instruction.

To join the free live, online event register here.

We hope to see you there!

To learn more about how to get involved in the kind of work this article features contact us or read about the professional learning opportunities on our services page.

“It’s Important to Dance with the Text”

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Teaching English in the Two-Year College Journal (TETYC) has published a special issue focused on “Teaching Reading in Open Access Contexts.” This volume is a wonderful resource for instructors wondering how best to support students’ reading in a rapidly changing world.

Guest Editors Joanne Baird Giordano and Cheryl Hogue Smith argue in their introductory article, “The Changing Realities of Open Access Reading: Where Are We Now? Where Might We Go Next?” that at a time when both the nature of reading itself and the place of literacy instruction at community colleges are undergoing rapid change, “faculty and administrators in open-access teaching contexts need flexible, evidence-based practices for helping students from diverse social, cultural, linguistic, and academic backgrounds develop the reading skills and strategies required for success across the range of courses that they teach.” The research articles in the issue describe such practices, from strategies for antiracist reading, framing strategic reading as a transferable skill, and supporting returning students to draw on their lived experiences to connect to reading and writing assignments in the composition classroom.

Reading Apprenticeship is featured in an Instructional Note article written by Nika Hogan, “’It’s important to dance with the text’: Enhancing Writing Instruction Through Reading Apprenticeship.” Hogan describes the Reading Apprenticeship’ framework as a support for instructors to orchestrate dynamic, contextualized literacy instruction that supports both student engagement and deeper learning about the discipline of writing studies.

You can download the article here.

Interested in a deeper dive into how Reading Apprenticeship can support students to engage deeply with texts as both readers and writers? Consider the Reading Apprenticeship in College Writing Course.

Read Our Chapter in this New Professional Learning Book

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Anyone interested in literacy and professional learning will find great value in this 2023 book edited by Dana Robertson, Leigh Hall, and Cynthia Brock. The introductory chapter provides a concise overview of the essential ‘ingredients’ and challenges involved in high quality professional learning. Each of the following chapters include program descriptions, case studies, and research on transformational teacher learning initiatives situated in culturally, linguistically and geographically diverse places. The chapters are grouped into two parts: 1) Professional Learning as Reflexive Growth-in-Practice and 2) Professional Learning In/Through/With Social Networks and Communities.

Reading Apprenticeship is featured in a chapter written by Cynthia Greenleaf, Gayle Cribb, Mira-Lisa Katz and Mary Stump “Professional Learning Designed to Cultivate Continuous Learning and Innovation.” The authors describe Reading Apprenticeship’s design principles, and they illustrate the power of ‘leading from practice’ by describing the journey of Gayle Cribb.

For a limited time, you can download our chapter at no charge, but we highly recommend you check out the book.

“This book conveys leading-edge ideas. It offers practical ideas for professional learning that ensure teachers and students alike are supported to learn and to sustain their learning….It shares insights that will make such professional growth a reality. This powerful work is a major contribution to the development of teacher learning.”
  — Diane Lapp, EdD, San Diego State University

“Leading Literacy Across the Disciplines”

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WestEd Literacy Director Linda Friedrich, in collaboration with Mary Stump, Associate Director, and Sharon Sáez, Partnership Development Director, published an exciting piece in the AASA School Administrator earlier this year. Their article, “Leading Literacy Across the Disciplines,” discusses the importance of disciplinary literacy and focuses on the successes of two large districts, in Maryland and Michigan respectively, with their implementation of Reading Apprenticeship.

Visit the AASA website to read the article, and check out these additional resources for more on disciplinary literacy: