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Reading to Learn

Supporting comprehension skills and academic learning schoolwide with a comprehensive approach to reading and understanding traditional and nontraditional texts across all disciplines for grades preK–12. 

Through professional learning, WestEd’s Reading to Learn provides teachers, teacher leaders, and instructional coaches with a simple and practical framework to help students comprehend traditional texts (books, textbooks, articles, etc.) and nontraditional texts (graphs, maps, charts, music, art, engines, computer code, etc.).   

How We Help

A core component of Reading to Learn is teaching educators how to use the framework to plan for or enhance any lesson in any content or grade level.  

We partner with you to create a plan for professional learning that meets your school’s needs. These plans typically include an introductory onsite workshop providing an overview of the Reading to Learn framework, guided practice workshops where teachers work in person with WestEd facilitators to design and refine instruction, and classroom demonstrations to see Reading to Learn instruction in action. 

During the professional learning, you will learn how to

  • use traditional texts to support literacy development and content learning,
  • use nontraditional texts to support literacy development and content learning,  
  • apply standards-driven and research-based practices to implement innovative instruction, and 
  • build capacity for frequent and high-quality interactions among teachers that enhance practice and culture.  

View this archived webinar featuring school leaders using Reading to Learn to enhance teacher practices and support student learning and achievement.


Service Delivery

  • Online and onsite

Who Will Benefit

  • School and district leaders 
  • Curriculum coordinators 
  • Instructional coaches 
  • Preschool, elementary, middle, and high school teachers 
  • Content teachers 
  • Career and technical education teachers 

As a result of my training around Reading to Learn, my students now spend more time reading and writing, and as a result they have learned more math content. They have also started using the classroom texts to teach each other, as well as classroom vocabulary and terminology more than ever before. 

— Aaron Germana
High School Math Teacher, Kennebunk High School, Kennebunk, ME 

Featured Experts

Kevin Perks

Kevin Perks

Kevin Perks is a national expert in multiple areas of school improvement, with a focus on education leadership, systems improvement, and professional learning in…
Expert
Melissa Strand

Melissa Strand

Melissa Strand is an expert in systems to support instructional change. As Senior Program Associate of the K–12 Systems team, Strand works closely with…
Expert

Connecting Research With Practice

Reading to Learn is a research-based and practitioner-oriented framework and professional learning model designed to improve the use of instructional practices for comprehension development during content instruction. 

As a framework, Reading to Learn shows teachers how to design and sequence learning strategies using standards and mastery objectives that help students meet literacy and content learning outcomes. 

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