Join thought leaders from the field at our upcoming webinars.
Webinars are designed and hosted by educators, staff, and researchers in the adult literacy field who bring their expertise and experience to help you advance your work with students. Sign up for one of our upcoming webinars today! Find past webinar recordings on our Courses & Learning page.
Adult learners often face challenges both inside and outside the classroom that can impact their confidence and persistence. The conversations adult educators have with students during these moments can help build trust, encourage growth, and support continued progress toward their goals. This session explores how intentional communication can strengthen relationships and help students navigate challenges with greater confidence and resilience. Participants will learn practical strategies for providing feedback, navigating difficult conversations, and supporting students’ growth, independence, and continued success.
Over the past ten years, municipal funding for community-based adult literacy education in New York City has increased from $5.5 million to $26.5 million. The Literacy Assistance Center (LAC) has played a central role in the advocacy campaigns that have led to these increases, and the LAC’s Investing in Quality report and Literacy & Justice Initiative have provided the vision for the advocacy and funding. What has made these advocacy campaigns particularly noteworthy is that they have focused less on the role of adult literacy education in workforce development and more on adult literacy as an issue of human rights, civil rights, and social justice. In this session, you’ll learn about these efforts and discuss their applicability to your own contexts and circumstances.
For learners at the adult foundational literacy level, reading is hard work. Many have modest sight-word banks and struggle to decode, whether it be CVC words (e.g., bat) for beginning readers or multisyllable words for more proficient readers. So much mental energy is expended on word identification that reading for pleasure feels like an impossibility. In this webinar, we will explore strategies to make reading pleasurable for beginning readers and, in turn, build their motivation and confidence. We will cover everything from engaging learners in the selection of accessible materials to introducing writing-to-read strategies, reading for celebration, and reading in groups of supportive others. Attendees will also walk away with specific recommendations for high-interest reading materials ready for immediate use.
Adult learners should not have to wait until they reach a particular academic level to begin building career skills, earning credentials, and seeing a connection between education and employment. This session explores how adult education programs can intentionally design a “Pre-IET” approach that introduces career pathways and contextualized instruction while learners continue developing foundational reading, math, English language, digital literacy, and workforce preparation skills. Participants will explore practical ways to connect foundational instruction to career goals and identify certifications and short-term credentials that may be accessible to learners before they are ready to transition into a full Integrated Education and Training (IET) program. Examples may include industry-recognized safety credentials, digital literacy and technology certifications, employability credentials, and other stackable opportunities that provide learners with early successes while preparing them for the next step in a career pathway. The session will also examine how Pre-IET programming can serve as an intentional bridge—not a holding pattern—connecting adult learners to IETs, postsecondary education, apprenticeships, occupational training, and employment.
Our professional development resources help program managers, instructors, trainers, and others build the capacity and quality of adult education programs. Our tools can help your adult literacy programs strengthen skills and learn new strategies to improve student outcomes in reading, writing, and financial literacy.
Todd Evans, Senior Director of Programs