Rethinking Preparation for Content Area Teaching

The Reading Apprenticeship Approach

Arguing that teacher education programs need to foster a broader understanding of adolescent literacy, especially if teachers are to help their students read in discipline-specific ways, the authors show how Reading Apprenticeship can strengthen content-based instruction, how elements of the model can be embedded in teacher preparation curricula, and what types of course activities enable new teachers to understand and practice this approach.

The Reading Apprenticeship framework has received national recognition as an effective, research-based instructional approach that supports all students in successfully engaging with and learning from academic texts. Emphasizing social, personal, cognitive, and knowledge-building tools, the Reading Apprenticeship approach can be useful to teachers in any content area classroom.