Yes, you are at Reading Apprenticeship.org! We launched a new website in 2021 to make it easier for you to find services and resources and to celebrate 25 years of Reading Apprenticeship.

With this new site, we endeavor to provide visitors with accessible ways to learn about our professional learning approach, understand how to get started transforming instruction, and see Reading Apprenticeship in action via implementation stories and videos.

Teachers and instructional leaders and will find useful information about what the professional learning looks like on the services page. Research professionals and district leaders can learn more about our evidence base and ongoing studies on the impact page. The library of resources can now be searched and filtered, so everyone can access many publications and classroom and professional learning tools.

We will be regularly updating the site with resources, publications, and new services and courses, so visit often for the latest updates. You can also get notified of new content by signing up for our quarterly e-bulletin.

As with all of our work, Reading Apprenticeship.org will be kept fresh and relevant via continuous improvement and collaboration. If you cannot find something you are looking for, or would like to see something added to the site, please use the Contact Us form to send us a note and we’ll respond.

The Reading Apprenticeship team at WestEd expresses our sincere appreciation to all of the teachers, staff, students, administrators, researchers, writers, and design professionals who have contributed to this site and its many resources.

EdWeek’s “Learning from Leaders” series features Danielle Kelsick, Chief Academic Officer at Environmental Charter Schools (ECS). Kelsick’s work is a wonderful illustration of how leaders can establish professional learning cultures that help teachers deepen their own knowledge and identity as educators, and also transform their teaching practices, so that all students experience “instruction that pushes them to think deeply and honors their intellectual curiosity.”

The article articulates how Kelsick has kept a focus on teaching and learning, even while navigating the pandemic and confronting anti-blackness. EdWeek notes that ECS staff members are reading Teaching for Black Lives and doing a book study together using Reading Apprenticeship strategies:

The metacognitive processes are helping teachers deepen their understanding … but it’s also symbolic—that not only can anti-racism and instructional rigor coexist as top priorities for a school system, but they can also reinforce each other.”

Teachers are participating in Reading Apprenticeship because this approach, as noted in the article, helped Kelsick find what she had been trying to “piece together over her years in the classroom—giving students the tools they needed to engage deeply with all kinds of texts and ideas.”

To learn more about the ECS and the role of Reading Apprenticeship in transforming teaching and learning, read the article or contact us.

WestEd’s Reading Apprenticeship program has been awarded an $8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to improve subject-area literacy at the secondary level, working in partnership with rural districts in North Carolina.

The four-year competitive grant was awarded from the department’s Education Innovation and Research program (EIR). The project enables the Reading Apprenticeship program to extend its award-winning professional learning to 600 high school teachers in subjects across the curriculum.

Reading Apprenticeship supports educators in all academic subject areas to improve their teaching of academic reading and writing. The program engages teachers who have expertise in subject areas and helps them mentor students in discipline-specific reading strategies, while also giving them new ways to explicitly support students’ social-emotional learning.

The project will be led by Dr. Linda Friedrich, WestEd’s Director of Literacy, who said, “We’re honored to work with educators in North Carolina.” She notes, “Too often programs present teachers with a false dichotomy between academic and social-emotional learning. Reading Apprenticeship engages teachers in integrating their content area learning goals with literacy and social emotional learning outcomes.”

Under this grant, WestEd will work both directly with teachers from 50 districts and 600+ teachers during the grant period.

Reading Apprenticeship has helped more than one million students from middle school through college to become better readers and thinkers. 25 years of research has documented the positive effects of Reading Apprenticeship. Its effectiveness is rated as Strong by EvidenceforESSA.org and it is one of a few high school interventions listed as effective by CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.

Contact for more information:

April Spencer
WRESA
Secondary/Professional Development Coordinator
(828) 774-5681 ext #103
[email protected]

Dr. Deborah (DJ) Jones
Educational Leadership Consulting, LLC
Consultant/Executive Coach
(336) 314-7582
[email protected]

Sharon Sáez
WestEd
Partnership Development Director
(301) 997-1891
[email protected]

The U.S. Department of Education recently announced the winners of the 2020 Comprehensive Literacy State Development (CLSD) grant competition. Eleven awards were made to states and outlying areas to advance literacy skills through the use of evidence-based practices, activities, and interventions. The winning plans articulate clear paths for improving reading and writing for children from birth through grade 12; some have a focus on early literacy, but many also include new solutions for middle and high school teachers and students.

“These comprehensive literacy grants provide critical resources for states to support improved literacy and outcomes for students,” notes Partnership Development Director Sharon Sáez. “We see districts make strong gains with CSLD awards because the application process and evidence-base requirements help create common goals and services that align to solve persistent teaching and learning challenges.”

As an evidence-based professional learning approach that can help bring coherence to plans with multiple partners and supports, Reading Apprenticeship has worked with a wide range of states, districts, and schools to implement multi-year literacy plans in middle and high schools. Our professional learning services include coaching, networking, online learning communities, and Teacher Leader development. Read more about this work in this WestEd R&D Alert or check out our success stories.

We welcome the opportunity to talk with you about how Reading Apprenticeship professional learning, our OER and 9th grade curriculum, and other teaching and formative assessment tools learning can support your literacy goals.

Contact Sharon Sáez, Partnership Development Director, at [email protected] or (301) 997-1891 today!

CLSD 2020 Award Recipients include:

• Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
• Missouri Department of Education
• Michigan Department of Education
• Tennessee Department of Education
• Louisiana Department of Education
• Arizona Department of Education
• Colorado Department of Education
• Wyoming Department of Education
• Texas Education Agency
• DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education
• Florida Department of Education
• American Samoa
• Guam
• Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
• Virgin Islands
• Bureau of Indian Education

This summer Reading Apprenticeship and Carnegie Math Pathways collaborated with the Rhode Island Department of Education’s PrepareRI College Readiness Project to create and offer new online courses for students and related professional learning for the course teachers. This unique opportunity combined in-depth learning and capacity-building for teachers with rigorous curriculum to disrupt learning loss for students. Over 1,600 rising 9th and 12th graders across the state participated in digital summer school courses designed to help young people develop the knowledge, strategies, and dispositions they need to become more powerful readers and mathematicians.

Students in 9th and 12th grade Reading Apprenticeship classes investigated their reader identity through questions like, How does your relationship with reading impact your identity and future as a student, a citizen, and a member of your community? Students read, discussed, and analyzed Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah to gain insight into the power of counter narratives to shape social change. Additionally, they built and practiced a range of metacognitive routines to make sense of complex text and worked on strategies to take control of their learning processes.

ELA students and teachers alike found that entering freshman were especially engaged in the challenging work: “This course was designed with student learning at the forefront,” said one 9th grade teacher, adding that “It has been an absolute pleasure teaching this book to this group of students. The journey of the novel itself, coupled with the engaging supplemental materials has been amazing. It has inspired many deep conversations and I think has really moved this group forward for the fall of their 9th grade year. It was extremely helpful to have common language from week one.”

Teachers also appreciated the chance to practice some new collaborative learning skills and tools they can use—both online and in-person. As one participating teacher said, “The curriculum was fantastic. I loved teaching reading skills in the context of social justice thematic texts and media sources. I also love the way that we were able to engage with both full groups and small groups for targeted instruction online.”

Explore our website to learn more about the Reading Apprenticeship approach and professional learning opportunities.