As Director of WestEd's English Language and Literacy Acceleration (ELLA) project, Pamela Spycher designs and implements research-based professional development for teachers, instructional coaches, and school and district administrators. The goal of ELLA is to support English learners, low literacy students, and other students who may experience difficulty mastering academic language, achieve academic success.

Since joining WestEd in 2005, Spycher has coached and trained thousands of K-12 teachers, administrators, and coaches in schools and districts in multiple states. Spycher shows ELLA participants how to strategically and consistently implement evidence-based, effective instructional strategies for improving the academic performance of English learners and academic language learners across the content areas. Specifically, ELLA focuses on increasing student engagement, motivation, and academic conversation in the classroom; academic vocabulary instruction; reading and listening comprehension instruction; and academic writing instruction.

ELLA workshop participants have reported that the intensive coaching and training they receive helps them effectively teach their English learners, low literacy students, and students who do not have a strong background in academic language. Further, teachers say that the quality of the professional discussions about teaching they have with colleagues, as well as the collaborative lesson planning they engage in, improves with this training.

Prior to joining WestEd, Spycher was a bilingual teacher, English language development specialist, and English immersion teacher in K-12 classrooms in California, Oregon, Europe, and Asia. She served in leadership positions for the California Reading and Literature Project and the San Diego County Office of Education. She also mentored beginning teachers in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis.

Spycher received a PhD in education with an emphasis in language, literacy, and culture and a designated emphasis in second language acquisition from the University of California, Davis.