Unlocking Opportunity for Adults at the Lowest Literacy Levels
Recruitment. Instruction. Support. Engagement.
Across the field, adult literacy programs are working to serve learners at the lowest literacy levels. Some programs, however, are breaking through long‑standing barriers by greatly expanding awareness and enrolling learners at a scale that better matches the scope of need. The Adult Literacy and Learning Impact Network (ALL IN) is launching an initiative to learn from these programs and scale what works.
Project RISE is an initiative to collect strategies and resources that have been proven to support lower-level learners and share them with the field. This multi‑phase national effort will identify replicable, high-impact strategies from exemplar programs and translate them into practical, field‑facing tools that programs can apply locally. The work will culminate in a capacity‑building convening designed to help programs apply these strategies locally. Our goal is to increase field awareness of promising strategies and practices in order to improve recruitment, enrollment, instruction, and support for learners.
Without better data and stronger strategies, the nearly 60 million adults in the United States performing at the lowest literacy proficiency levels will remain underserved and programs could continue to struggle in isolation. Together, we can address critical gaps, implement stronger program design, and leverage real solutions for learners at the lowest levels.
Phase 1
Learning from the Field
This month, we will share a survey with the goal of identifying and learning from programs with demonstrated success in recruiting and retaining lower-level learners in Adult Basic Education and English Language Learning programs. By completing this survey, you can help ALL IN identify and share replicable approaches to recruiting, enrolling, teaching, and supporting lower-level learners. You can also help us identify critical gaps that ALL IN can address in our programmatic and advocacy work.
Designing a Scalable Resource Collection
Based on survey responses, ALL IN will identify a cohort of 20-30 high-performing programs that will be invited to participate in a co-design process during fall 2026 (September-November).
These sessions will surface replicable and scalable strategies for recruiting and serving lower-level learners and support the development of a toolkit to share across the field. Programs participating in the co-design sessions will receive a small honorarium for their time.
Phase 2
Implementing and Documenting New Approaches
ALL IN will invite a cohort of adult education programs to implement the strategies and resources in the toolkit and to document the impact on their work with lower-level learners. The programs will be selected from among the survey responders who serve lower-level learners and who might benefit from strategic guidance, practices, and resources. .
Evaluating the Results
Post-implementation, we will analyze the impact on program and learner progress to evaluate the scalability of program-level strategies and resources on the wider field. We will share our findings via briefs, blogs, public webinars, and more.
