Apprenticeship is an important pedagogy for literacy development.

The learning how of reading has many levels: learning how to decode single words, learning how to construct meaning from extended text, learning how to monitor for comprehension, learning how to derive an author's point of view. Children need to see expert readers as models. (Reading big books and using think-aloud techniques have become very popular for modeling and mentoring.) Every time a reading or writing skill is presented, children should see models of success. It is no coincidence that one of the best predictors of reading and writing success is the amount of "expert" reading children have seen in the home as their parents read to them or as parents write stories as children dictate.

Children also need plenty of opportunity for guided practice with the scaffolds that will allow them to succeed in real acts of making meaning. Dividing practice into isolated and meaningless skills is like teaching children to pedal, then to steer, then to balance on a bike. By scaffolding children, we can help them to make meaning, or ride a bike, right from the beginning. There are many common classroom scaffolds. The teacher, working one-on-one, can provide support for difficult words, as can peers in a cooperative-learning group. Electronic books, such as WiggleWorks: The Scholastic Beginning Literacy System, provide scaffolds at a child's request. While reading for meaning, children can ask the computer to read a word or sentence aloud, just as a teacher might scaffold them. When beginning to write, children can place story-critical words into their compositions to make written meaning, even before they can spell these words.