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Every so often, a teacher shares a reflection that captures what sustained instructional commitment really looks like. Not a new initiative, but an evidence-based practice that deepens with commitment over time.
Recently, biology teacher Darren Williams from Asheville High School in Asheville, NC reflected on his ongoing work with Reading Apprenticeship. He first joined a Reading Apprenticeship cohort in 2021 and has continued to use its routines since then. Now, as he works toward his National Board certification, he has been especially intentional about applying his Reading Apprenticeship expertise to support student learning in biology.
His reflection offers a powerful example of what can happen when students are supported not just in reading texts in general but in reading like biologists.
When Assessment Shifts Create New Opportunities
In recent years, the Biology End-of-Course (EOC) assessment shifted to include more reading passages. That change brought renewed attention to how students were making sense of scientific texts.
“For the past several years, students have not met expected growth in biology,” he shared, “We have often said that students had difficulty reading and understanding the questions.”
These observations were part of ongoing, thoughtful conversations about student learning. As one administrator framed it:
“These same students are meeting growth on the English EOC, so why are they not doing that in biology?”
Rather than seeing this as a disconnect, Darren saw it as an invitation to look more closely at how reading functions within biology as a discipline and how he can support his students in gaining the confidence and skills to tackle complex disciplinary texts.
Reading as a Process in Biology
Because Reading Apprenticeship had long been part of his instructional practice, he leaned further into its core principles. He focused on making his thinking visible and helped his students make their own thinking visible to themselves and others as they read biology texts.
Students were supported in:
- Slowing down and unpacking dense scientific passages
- Talking through confusion as a natural part of learning
- Attending carefully to how diagrams, data, and text interact
Reading was no longer something students did before biology. It became part of how they processed, analyzed, and understood biological concepts.
Evidence of Impact
When the most recent Biology EOC results were in, they reflected a meaningful shift.
“Then last year’s test results came back, and we exceeded expected growth,” he wrote. “That has never happened.”
For the first time, students surpassed growth expectations in Biology. The success was not the result of a single strategy or short-term change, but of sustained Reading Apprenticeship routines that helped students truly metabolize complex scientific texts.
Why This Story Matters
This reflection underscores an important truth: reading is not a generic skill that automatically transfers across disciplines. Biology asks students to read in particular ways—to interpret evidence, synthesize text and diagrams, and reason through complex systems. Reading Apprenticeship supports science teachers in making those processes explicit, so students can engage more fully in disciplinary learning. These same routines can also be applied to the type of reading needed for success in other core disciplines.
The article was written by Heather Howlett (WestEd), Darren Williams (Asheville City Schools) and Jenell Krishnan (WestEd).
Post Date
February 12, 2026