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A Letter to the Literacy Texas Community

by

Salazar, Magda

Author: Magda Salazar, Literacy Texas Board of Directors

I share this message as Literacy Month comes to a close, and right in the middle of Hispanic Heritage Month. I share it in what, I hope, is a message of kudos to all of you.

Last month, I was excited to meet Linda Felix during the Literacy Texas state conference in San Marcos. I was moved by Linda’s story. Her growth, confidence, and strength to persevere. My few exchanges with her have been filled with such positivity, decorum, and that grit that comes from developed strength.

Often, we think about the logistics of learning and teaching in terms of reaching goals, such as reading, writing, communicating effectively, and being understood. The work, the showing up, the repetition, and the practice. Students progress, grow, improve, and go on to do incredible things.

Linda Felix addresses attendees at the 2025 Literacy Texas Annual Conference

Such was the case with Linda. When she spoke at the conference, she mentioned running into her former teachers at an event years later and updating them on all that she had accomplished; you see, she was there as their peer. I choked up, imagining the impact of the story, for both student and teacher.

Linda’s story played out for me personally when I saw my own name included in a new industry textbook. Alongside other professionals, we contributed to the conversation on the impact of diversity in public relations. A textbook, y’all! Like, a book that others will use to learn and develop their own skills, LOL.

I took some time to think about the people in my life who created a path for my own literacy: my mother for ensuring my siblings and I had access to books, materials to read, and creative arts programs; my high school teachers Mrs. Kim Nabours (English literature and poetry), and Mrs. Jane Hambric (journalism and yearbook), and Professor Carla Holmes for including me in this project.

Similar to the support, access, and opportunities that I had, there is all of you, standing by the students with your passion for literacy that knows no boundaries. Many will never know the level of organization, the time, the trial and error, the frustration, the hope, the energy it takes to be positive, the effort required for the math to math, and the fundraising acumen required to do what teachers, volunteers, coaches, and leaders do.

I had a chance to meet some of you during the state conference. You shared positive feedback and experiences, and you opened up about the struggles you personally endure. Some of the numbers are daunting to say the least, but the numbers that show progress exist because you are part of the equation.

During Literacy Month and every month, know that what you do matters. By being a part of the conversation and showing up, lending your heart and strength to the literacy community, sharing your time and expertise, you create impact and new opportunities.

As we celebrate you, I also close today by reminding each of you to prioritize yourself with the resources we often encourage for others, to care for your physical and mental health, and to seek support where you can.

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Adult Literacy and the Workforce: Building Skills for a Better Future

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This is a guest post by BurlingtonEnglish, a 2025 Annual Conference sponsor.

In today’s job market, literacy extends far beyond the ability to read and write. It includes understanding, communicating, and applying knowledge in practical ways that enable individuals to function effectively at work and in daily life. Yet over 43 million adults in the U.S. possess low literacy skills, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That’s nearly one in five adults who may struggle with filling out a job application, understanding workplace safety protocols, or even reading a paycheck.

This skills gap has a ripple effect not just on individual careers, but on families, communities, and the economy. To meet the demands of today’s workforce, adult education must take a holistic approach, integrating job preparation, soft skills, digital literacy, and financial literacy into literacy instruction.

One powerful tool addressing this need is Burlington Ready to Work, a comprehensive course designed to help adult learners build the essential skills they need to find and keep employment in today’s competitive job market.

Why Adult Literacy Matters More Than Ever

Workforce success begins with literacy. Adults with strong literacy and communication skills are more likely to obtain steady jobs, earn higher wages, and pursue career advancement. On the flip side, low literacy often correlates with low wages, job insecurity, and limited upward mobility.

But employers also feel the impact. From errors in communication to safety concerns and limited productivity, businesses lose time and money when their workforce lacks basic skills. That’s why investing in adult literacy and equipping learners with relevant, work-focused education is critical for long-term economic stability.

Job Preparation: More Than Resumes

Today’s job seekers need more than a polished resume, they need to understand how to interpret job postings, complete online applications, and prepare for interviews. Burlington Ready to Work directly supports this need by providing workforce readiness vocabulary, functional language practice, and real-world job scenarios.

Its curriculum offers career-focused lessons that simulate real workplace tasks. Whether it’s communicating with customers, interacting with a supervisor, or preparing for a job interview, learners get practical experience that translates directly to the workplace.

This kind of job preparation gives adult learners confidence and competence, not only to get a job, but to succeed in it.

Soft Skills: The Hidden Currency of Employment

In addition to hard skills, employers consistently prioritize soft skills—communication, teamwork, adaptability, and time management. These are the skills that help people work effectively with others and handle the day-to-day challenges of professional life.

Burlington Ready to Work incorporates explicit soft skills training into its lessons. Learners read and talk about teamwork, resolving workplace conflicts, and managing time and tasks efficiently. This focus ensures learners aren’t just trained for the technical aspects of a job but are equipped to thrive in diverse work environments.

Digital Literacy: The New Baseline

In today’s economy, digital skills are no longer optional. Job applications, communication with employers, online scheduling systems, and even time clocks are increasingly digitized. Yet, many adults with low literacy also lack digital access and confidence.

BurlingtonEnglish bridges this gap by integrating technology-based instruction into its platform. Learners not only gain valuable literacy skills and workplace vocabulary but also learn how to navigate digital tools safely and effectively, whether writing emails or using job search platforms. The online platform is intuitive and learner-friendly, making it accessible to adults with limited digital experience.

This dual focus on language and digital literacy prepares learners for the realities of modern workplaces—where being digitally prepared is essential.

Financial Literacy: Empowering Life Beyond the Job

Financial stress is one of the leading causes of workplace absenteeism and distraction. Many adult learners struggle with budgeting, credit management, or understanding their pay stubs, issues that can lead to financial instability.

Recognizing this, Burlington Ready to Work includes financial literacy content that helps learners understand personal finance concepts like budgeting, banking, and credit. These lessons are designed with clear language, real-life examples, and practical tools to empower adults to take control of their financial futures.

Financial literacy strengthens not only the worker, but their household and community, promoting long-term economic stability.

Why this Matters

Adult literacy is a foundation for opportunity, and workforce readiness is the bridge to a better future. With the right tools, training, and support, every adult has the potential to succeed in today’s workforce. BurlingtonEnglish offers a pathway forward, helping adult learners gain the skills, confidence, and readiness they need to succeed at work and beyond.

To learn more, watch our Burlington Ready to Work video!

Click here to reach your BurlingtonEnglish representative.

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From Reading to Reality: Turning Literacy Into Livelihood

by

This is a guest post by Southern Careers Institute, a 2025 Annual Conference sponsor.

For millions of Texans, mastering basic reading, writing, and numeracy is the first hard-won victory on the road to a better life. Roughly 4.8 million adults in the state still need some form of literacy education.

However, once adults build literacy skills, what comes next? How do newly literate Texans convert foundational skills into specialized expertise that puts food on the table?

Southern Careers Institute, a Texas-born career college with campuses from Brownsville to Austin and a growing roster of online options, exists to answer the question. Literacy opens the door to modern work, but employers hire for competence with specific tools, technologies, and regulations. SCI designs every program with that reality in mind.

Programs in healthcare, skilled trades, technology, and more embed industry vocabulary and document-heavy tasks (such as charting vital signs, interpreting wiring schematics, or troubleshooting cloud networks) into daily lab practice so that reading becomes doing.

Contextualized instruction turns comprehension into competence

Research shows that adults learn best when new information is tethered to immediate goals. SCI’s instructors, many of whom bring years of field experience, translate textbook language into job-site readiness the moment a lesson begins. In an HVAC classroom, for example, a vocabulary that includes “thermodynamics” and “refrigerant cycle” is paired with a lab assignment that requires students to read a pressure-temperature chart and adjust gauges on a live system. The reading comprehension built in earlier literacy classes now drives hands-on troubleshooting, and mistakes become teachable moments instead of barriers.

Healthcare programs follow the same pattern. Students study medical terminology one day and transcribe patient-intake notes the next, reinforcing spelling, abbreviations, and privacy regulations in real time. By weaving technical literacy into performance tasks, SCI helps adult learners internalize the specialized language employers expect without forcing them back into abstract theory alone.

Adult-friendly pacing and supports

Time and cost are chief concerns for adult learners who already juggle work and family. Most SCI programs can be completed in as little as five to fifteen months, depending on full- or part-time enrollment, so momentum from an adult-education milestone is not lost to multi-year detours.

Day and evening schedules, online formats, and career-services coaching reduce friction even further. SCI’s CareerHub job-matching tool lets students see Texas-wide openings mapped against the licenses or certifications each role requires, creating a clear line of sight from coursework to paycheck.

Employer alignment closes the skills gap

Texas businesses routinely cite a shortage of workers with soft skills and technical know-how. SCI maintains advisory boards of regional employers who preview curricula and suggest updates so that lessons stay current. Graduates are trained to sit for industry-recognized certifications and when appropriate train on advanced equipment their future supervisors already use, rather than relearning their skills from scratch on the job.

By the time an SCI student unwraps a diploma or certificate, the distance from literacy to livelihood has been reduced to a single step of applying for a new job.

Walking through the open door

Texas still has work to do before every adult reaches basic literacy, but thousands cross that threshold each year. SCI stands ready for the adults who built foundational skills, transforming the ability to read about opportunity into specialized training. For adults who have already proven they can learn, the next lesson is simple: specialized skills are within reach, and the classroom is designed for the lives they already lead.

Adults ready to take their next step towards a new career should visit scitexas.edu

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The Power of Connection: Strengthening English Learning Nationwide

by

By Rachel Fuchs, Intercambio Director of Product Sales and National Network

Originally published March 24, 2025 | Updated for Literacy Texas

At Intercambio, Connection Drives Everything We Do

Based in Colorado, Intercambio is a national nonprofit that builds meaningful connections and stronger communities through English education. All our programming stems from the belief that shared learning experiences and authentic relationships break down barriers, build confidence, and foster inclusion. While our day-to-day focus is often on supporting one-on-one connections between our 500+ local English learners and their teachers, our national team is focused on expanding that same spirit of connection at the organizational level – ultimately reaching tens of thousands more.

Launching the Intercambio Network

That vision became the foundation of the Intercambio Network. Since 2020, more than 160 organizations have participated in the Network’s growing number of opportunities to connect, share, and grow together. Membership is offered at two levels – Family and Friend – and both provide valuable access to professional development and peer support.

Family members, for example, receive the same comprehensive online teacher training that Intercambio volunteers use to prepare for teaching with our Confidence and Connections curriculum. These workshops not only provide practical tools but also a sense of belonging – more than 1,800 individuals have participated so far, and each cohort is invited into an online community where members can introduce themselves, ask questions, and find support.

“We have really benefited from our membership. It has helped us create more structure in our program and we have received positive feedback from both volunteers and students.”

Andrea De Jong, Permian Basin Adult Literacy Center in Midland, TX

Supporting Educators and Program Leaders Nationwide

In addition to teacher training, the Intercambio Network offers ongoing learning and connection throughout the year. Monthly virtual connection hours, teaching workshops, and an annual online summer conference bring educators together to share practices and stay energized. Last year’s conference welcomed over 270 participants from across the country.

For program administrators, we host structured Networking Calls three times a year. These themed calls create space for leaders to connect, ask questions, and collaborate on common challenges. Past conversations have explored topics like measuring program impact, weaving equity into decision-making, and introducing group classes into historically one-on-one models. Again and again, we see how valuable it is for practitioners to know they’re not alone – and to learn from each other in real time.

Connection as a Core Strategy

I’ve often mused that Intercambio is in the business of connection through mutual learning and relationship-building. We could choose to do that in many different ways; we just happen to do that through English acquisition. And as the Intercambio Network continues to grow in strength, it’s clearer than ever that connection is at the core of what we do there, too.

To learn more about the Intercambio Network and how your program can get involved, visit intercambio.org/network.

You can find Intercambio Uniting Communities among the exhibitors at the 2025 Literacy Texas Annual Conference.

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Second Chances Start With Compassionate Teachers

by

Dr. Jenny McCormack Walker

Author: Dr. Jenny McCormack Walker, Literacy Texas Executive Director

One of the most impactful professional development workshops I’ve ever attended was led by brain researcher Dr. Marcia Tate. In her presentation, she said,

“If students love you, they’ll do anything for you.”

With this sentiment, Dr. Tate made a strong case for the power of positive relationships in the classroom. If we, as instructors, can earn the trust and respect of the adult learners we serve, we can use that as leverage to motivate, empower, and equip our students for success.  

In the adult education and literacy field, we’re fortunate to have students with a diverse range of backgrounds, and some of those backgrounds include substance use and incarceration.

It’s not our job to decide if they’re worthy of a second chance.

It’s our job to help them begin again when they’re ready for it.  

Our organizations are stretched thin and are charged with doing an unbelievable amount of work. Even so, it’s important that the people on your team are the right fit for the students you serve. You must have people who can build positive relationships with all students.

This is why it’s infinitely important to be selective about the people you invite to join your team. There are often people with good hearts who want to serve as a tutor or volunteer, but sometimes even people with good hearts bring preconceived ideas about those carrying heavy baggage from their past.

This will impact an instructor’s ability to build positive relationships, and ultimately, it will impact the success of the students in their classroom.

When interviewing potential volunteers or staff members, it’s important to be open and honest about the kind of students they could potentially have in their class. It’s not fair to your adult learners – or to the candidate you’re interviewing – to skip those difficult, yet critical, conversations.

You can always teach instructional strategies. You can’t always teach a person how to have an open mind and an open heart.  

On Thursday, June 26, we’ll welcome a special contingent from the Windham School District – which has responsibility for all adult education for incarcerated folks across Texas – to our Best of Texas session. It’s promising to be a fascinating conversation and we’d love to have you there. Find out more and register here.

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The opposite of “wasteful”

by

Dr. Jenny McCormack Walker

Author: Dr. Jenny McCormack Walker, Literacy Texas Executive Director

Since his election, President Trump has prioritized the need to reform wasteful spending on the federal level. Most Americans would agree that a sensible and efficient approach to spending benefits us all.  

However, the proposed “skinny budget” for FY26 calls for the complete elimination of funds for adult education (page 6).

Funding adult education and literacy is the opposite of wasteful. The truth is that an investment in our work is an investment in the future of our country and of our state. 

First, this investment helps provide an educated workforce for continued economic development.

The United States is a strong world leader in many industries, and Texas, specifically, has become home base for many leading corporations focusing on a variety of vital fields including technology, manufacturing, agriculture, and others. 

To push forward continued growth in these areas, we must have people to fill jobs and to lead innovation. Adult Education programs help people build the skills they need to join the workforce and help these companies flourish. A rise of just 1% in literacy scores leads to a 2.5% rise in labor productivity and a 1.5% rise in GDP. 

Additionally, Adult Education is an investment in the next generation. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, a division of the U.S. Department of Education, Texas ranks among the lowest states in the country for literacy, with 28 percent of adults functioning at or below a level 1 for reading (the lowest level) and 40 percent of adults functioning at or below a level 3. 

Many young students are being sent home with books to read to parents who themselves do not have adequate literacy skills. Texas has done a great job in recent years at supporting early childhood literacy programs, but active involvement of parents and caregivers is a critically important component of many of those programs. When we fail to invest in Adult Education, we leave those children without the support they need, and the low literacy cycle will perpetuate. 

One of the points the president uses to justify the elimination of this funding is the so-called “dismal” results found in Adult Education programs. What many may not realize is that there are millions of people who need our services, but Adult Education and literacy providers have been operating with skeleton crews and shoestring budgets – for decades! It’s impossible to make the kind of population-level change we need to see with even less funding than we currently receive. 

Instead of being cut, Adult Education funding should be expanded. 

“Recent causal research in Massachusetts offers a glimpse of what’s possible if AEFLA [Adult Education and Family Literacy Act] had a larger budget. Researchers were able to take advantage of the state’s waiting lists and admissions lotteries to compare the outcomes of learners who were admitted to an English language acquisition program in Framingham with those of learners who lost the lottery and were turned away.

…Researchers found that participation boosted the annual earnings of learners by 56 percent over the 10 years following their admission to the program. Participants were three times as likely to have middle-class annual earnings in the range of $60,000 to $70,000 in any year as those who were not admitted. Importantly, the increased tax revenue generated by those earning gains fully covered the costs of the program.

In other words, adult education, if adequately funded and well-implemented, can pay for itself.”

Quote from NewAmerica.org

There is a small window of time before the budget becomes official, and if you’re interested in supporting Adult Education, you can help. Literacy Texas is joining forces with the Coalition on Adult Basic Education (COABE) and their advocacy efforts, as well as ProLiteracy, who is urging action on the same issue. We encourage you to learn more about these campaigns (COABE) (ProLiteracy) and to help us communicate the crucial importance of the continuation of Adult Education funding. 

Investing in Adult Education will pay dividends well into the future. The elimination of funding for this work will be devastating in many ways, and it will negatively impact both economic development and future generations of Texans. Lawmakers should rethink this budget proposal and include expanded funding for Adult Education.   

Please act now.

Amazing things are happening in Texas!

“Best of Texas” brings local experts together to share their wisdom and experience.

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Loving our neighbors with literacy

by

Dr. Jenny McCormack Walker

Author: Dr. Jenny McCormack Walker, Literacy Texas Executive Director

Houses of worship often serve as the center of a community, providing the perfect place for language learning, adult basic education, and other academic and skill-building programs. For this reason, faith-affiliated organizations have long served as some of our most valued partners at Literacy Texas.

Last month, I had the privilege of attending the Metroplex Literacy Conference, a gathering of those working in adult and family literacy ministries in the Dallas-Fort-Worth region. Organizers invited me to serve as the keynote speaker at their event, which was held at Dallas Baptist University, and it reminded me of the calling that I believe led me into this work.

Sometime around 2019, I read a quote from Mother Teresa that said:

“I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that He will guide me to do whatever I’m supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I’m praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us, and we change things.”

At the time, this quote shook me to my core. I had been walking through a valley in my life and in my career. My prayer was always, “Lord, I don’t know what you have for me, but I know it is not this. I am ready for something new when you’re ready to send me.”

He heard my prayers and sent me directly to adult literacy.

Starting a GED program at my church was a dream I had shared with my pastor long before an opportunity came up to work at the Literacy Council in Texarkana. I was thrilled at the chance to let my career also serve as a mission field for me. While I was not running a faith-based organization, I was running the organization as a woman of faith who believed that changing the world started with loving the people in my community and providing them with the resources they needed to be able to live well. It was a model I learned from reading about the ministry of Jesus.

The world around us is full of uncertainty, and there is so much in today’s headlines that can leave us feeling unsettled. However, in these times when so much is out of our control, we must cling to the things we can control like our ability to love and serve others. This is what matters the most and the best chance we have, collectively, to change the world.

Plan to join us at our next Best of Texas online session, highlighting Texas-based Faith-Affiliated literacy programs, on April 24.

Amazing things are happening in Texas!

“Best of Texas” brings local experts together to share their wisdom and experience.

find out more about this monthly series