Teaching Adult Literacy with Intention and Strategy
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With the support of the Department of Youth and Community Development, the Literacy Assistance Center plans to offer the Teaching Adult Literacy with Intention and Strategy cohort (TALIS-C) at no cost to all participants selected for 2026.
The cohort is only open to applicants currently working or volunteering in DYCD-funded organizations.
What you can expect from the cohort:
Hands-on, interactive sessions
Practical strategies for real-world adult literacy challenges
Peer learning and collaborative problem-solving
Personalized coaching and instructional support
23 hours of professional development
Applications due: 2/13/2026
In-person dates: Fridays, 3/6, 3/13, 3/27, and 5/15
Time: 10:00 am - 3:00 pm
Remote Date: Friday, 4/10 - (10:00 am - 1:00 pm)
Lunch will be provided to participants
To learn more about the content of the cohort, please contact:
Lizelena Iglesias at lizelenai@lacnyc.org
Cohort Description
How should we approach a learner who can discuss complex ideas yet struggles to write a paragraph? What about a learner who can decode fluently but misses meanings?
In this cohort we’ll tackle these common classroom puzzles and others by building literacy instruction grounded not on what placement tests suggest learners lack, but rather what they already bring to the classroom and we’ll augment this using AI to streamline your planning so your energy stays focused on the teaching that actually matters.
Across five sessions, participants will examine vocabulary as a tool for thinking (not word lists), instructional moves that support learners in developing ideas across texts, and strategies for helping learners engage critically with everything from news articles to social media posts. We’ll also explore what research tells us about how adults process, apply, and retain new literacy skills. The focus throughout is on the pivotal instructional decisions that move learning forward.
Whether your learners are acquiring English while they work towards their GED, striving to meet BEST Plus 3.0 standards, returning to school after years away, or navigating academic language for the first time, this cohort can help you understand why different strategies can work for your classroom puzzles.
By the end of this cohort, you will:
Design lessons that leverage learners’ background knowledge and lived experience
Use contrastive analysis and interactive strategies to reframe grammar, syntax, and text structures as resources for meaning-making across languages and texts
Teach vocabulary as conceptual power rather than memorization
Guide learners to read critically across formats—print, digital, visual, and media-based
Use AI tools to generate leveled materials and support differentiation without diluting rigor
This cohort will cover topics such as:
💡The Reading Brain
Explore how the brain learns, connects, and grows through reading.
💡Who Are Our Learners?
Build confidence and strengthen foundational literacy skills in multilevel adult education classrooms.
💡Building on What They Know
Connect new ideas to learners’ experiences and prior knowledge to support understanding.
💡Word Power
Develop vocabulary for meaning-making, opportunity, and independence, enabling learners to express well-developed ideas using precise, content-specific language across contexts.
💡Think Across Texts
Analyze and apply information from print and digital texts using critical thinking.
💡Read & Write Together
Integrate reading and writing through shared attention to language, structure, and meaning.
Format
Participants will engage in 20 hours of in-person learning and 3 hours of remote instruction, supported by individualized coaching throughout the cohort.
Session 4 is mandatory. In this session, participants will collaboratively design a lesson plan that integrates key course learnings. You will leave with a fully developed, ready-to-implement lesson. Coaching support and classroom visits will take place primarily after Session 4 and before Session 5 to support you as you put the course ideas into practice.
In Session 5, participants will reconvene to reflect on implementation, discuss findings, receive feedback, and be awarded their certificate of completion.
An online learning space will support reflection, shared readings, and resource exchange. All course requirements are completed during the cohort—no additional work afterward.
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