Key Projects
Reading Apprenticeship
Reading Apprenticeship is an evidence-based approach to both professional learning and classroom instruction where teachers experience–and learn to model–literacy routines that support student discussion, collaboration, reflection, and inquiry.
The Reading Apprenticeship approach is based on a unique framework of four interacting dimensions of learning that support academic and social-emotional learning: social, personal, cognitive, and knowledge-building. These dimensions are developed by engaging students in metacognitive conversation and extensive reading.
Project READi (Reading, Evidence, and Argumentation in Disciplinary Instruction)
This project was part of the five-year IES Reading for Understanding initiative. WestEd literacy staff, researchers and educators developed instructional strategies, technology, curricula, teacher professional development, and assessment to increase the reading comprehension of students in grades 6-12. Our team collaborated with researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and elsewhere, first to understand the cognitive processes students need to draw on to develop evidence-based arguments, and then to design interventions. READi included a randomized controlled trial which found that the Reading Apprenticeship-based approach and curriculum yielded significant, positive student impacts in science learning and literacy (Goldman, et al. AERJ, 2019).
Colorado READ Act
WestEd is conducting a multi-year longitudinal evaluation of Colorado’s Reading to Ensure Academic Development Act (Colorado READ Act), which provides school districts with funding and support to aid literacy development for K-3 students.
Early findings and recommendations are revealing ways the state can improve reading education for students and professional development for educators statewide. Conducted in partnership with the Colorado Department of Education, Research Triangle Institute, and Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, the evaluation is creating a model for statewide efforts to turn the tide on literacy rates to ensure all students can read with confidence.