Founder &

Instructor

Zeke Vanderhoek shaking hands with a young student in a classroom, smiling. The classroom has colorful educational posters and learning materials on the walls.
Zeke Vanderhoek speaking at a podium with a microphone against a black background.

At Principal Powered Reading, every workshop is personally taught by the company’s founder Zeke Vanderhoek.

A long-time school Principal, Zeke has extensive leadership experience and deep expertise in school-wide implementation of evidence-based literacy practices.

Learn more about Zeke below.

    • Zeke also has deep expertise in adult learning, having founded and served as the CEO of Manhattan Prep, a leading national educational company that redefined teaching excellence.

    • As Principal, Zeke led his school’s comprehensive evaluation of national literacy curricula for K-8 and oversaw all aspects of curricular implementation.

    • Zeke has conducted hundreds of hours of evidence-based literacy trainings including: The Science of Reading Comprehension, Text Complexity Metrics, Foundational Reading Skills, and Close Reading Pedagogy.

    • Zeke regularly presents guest lectures for the course “Neuroscience Applications to Education” at Columbia University’s Teacher College.

    • Zeke began his career teaching middle school and still identifies first as a teacher. While serving as Principal, he taught at least one course every year.

    • He has taught reading and language to students at every grade level from Kindergarten through 8th grade.

    • Zeke continues teaching literacy. He spends over 250 minutes each week volunteering as a one-to-one tutor with struggling K-8 readers.

    • Zeke is passionate about continuing to deepen his own knowledge and learns the most from his students.

    • He loves both sharing his knowledge with you AND learning from you and other educational leaders in Principal Powered Reading’s workshops.

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