Our Programs
The Literacy Council has five major program initiatives:
The Literacy Providers Network
The Literacy Providers Network
The Literacy Providers Network really gets to the heart of our mission of strengthening and supporting agencies providing literacy services. We help literacy programs by:
- – Marketing – The most effective way of reaching non-readers is through television and radio advertising. Unfortunately, it is expensive. We utilize our resources to recruit struggling readers and volunteers through advertising so that literacy providers can use their limited funding on reading programs.
- – We offer continuing networking and professional development opportunities through our bimonthly Literacy Providers Network meetings and through special workshops, such as our ESOL Educators conference.
- – Our staff provides much needed professional support that smaller agencies cannot afford such as assistance with marketing, fundraising, and program development. We also provide training and technical assistance in best practices in program development and sustainability.
- – We train volunteers to tutor basic literacy and English language learners, and refer them to agencies that can put them to work battling illiteracy in their community.
- – Finally, we refer struggling readers who call our helpline to literacy programs that can help them.
The Literacy Helpline – 205-326-1925 or 888-448-7323 [READ]
The Literacy Helpline is a toll-free number that not only serves struggling readers and people wanting to learn English, but also serves as a clearinghouse for volunteers who want to tutor or to help literacy programs in another way. Helpline assistance is available in both English and Spanish.
Our helpline is critical to provider agencies because most don’t have the funding that it takes to advertise for clients and solicit volunteers. We market our helpline to serve as a point of referral so they can spend their limited resources on teaching people to read.
Learn more about our helpline and available reading programs.
Tutor Training
There are many well-intentioned people who want to teach struggling readers. But to be the best tutors, they need training. The Literacy Council offers a free 12-hour basic literacy tutor training course that teaches methods such as phonics, sight words, and reading comprehension. Like children, that’s how adults learn to read. In addition, we offer a tutor training for people who want to teach English for Speakers of Other Languages.
Learn More about tutor training classes.
United We Read
Today’s children are the business leaders, healthcare professionals, and elected officials of tomorrow. Children discover possibilities through books as they develop a love of reading. But sadly, studies have found there are very few age-appropriate books in the homes of low-income children.
The Literacy Council is helping to foster the love of reading through United We Read, a program that coordinates volunteers reading to school classrooms, and gives each child in the classroom a book of his or her own to keep.
Find out how you can becomine a United We Read volunteer or sponsor.
GED Scholarship
Sometimes it just takes a little time and money to help someone in a big way. The Literacy Council is doing just that with our Jackie Wuska Hurt GED Scholarship (named in honor of our former Executive Director), which pays for 80% of the GED testing fee and provides assistance to defray childcare and transportation costs. To qualify for the scholarship, applicants must have passed the GED practice test and must have demonstrated the need for financial assistance.