General Information

• Upon request, NCFL can provide full descriptions, training objectives, agendas and cost estimates to bring a training to your school, district or community.
• Trainings are generally 1-3 days in length and many may be customized to meet your program’s needs.
• Continuing Education Units (CEUs) are available for selected trainings.
• NCFL also can provide presenters or facilitators for group presentations, discussions, luncheons, conferences, planning meetings, customized trainings, technical assistance and other events.

To send an information request to NCFL's training department, click here. Or call (502) 584-1133 x149.

See below for brief descriptions of NCFL training opportunities in Children's Literacy, Adult Education, Parent Involvement, Working with English Language Learners, and Comprehensive Family Literacy.

Children's Literacy

Children’s Literacy — Infants and Toddlers
This training focuses on the research-based skills and strategies that promote language and literacy learning in infants and toddlers, delivered within the context of children’s everyday experiences, routines, environments and relationships.

Children’s Literacy — Preschool
This training focuses on the research-based skills and strategies important for preparing preschool children to get ready to learn to read. A specific focus on intentional and purposeful teaching through an assessment-to-instruction process is emphasized.

Becoming Readers: Infants and Toddlers
(Formerly Growing Readers Right from the Start)
In this interactive workshop, participants will connect research to practices that support oral language and early print awareness—skills that lead to later reading success. Discover activities and resources to help parents support their infant’s or toddler’s early learning experiences. This workshop is appropriate for educators who work with parents of infants and toddlers, including child care teachers and home visitors.

Building Readers Training for Child Care Professionals
The Building Readers training helps child care providers support the development of young children's language and literacy skills in child care centers and homes. Research-based strategies to prepare children to learn to read are explored for infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Parents’ support of developing language and literacy skills is discussed as an important element of children's school readiness.

Book Talk: Parents and Children Together (Dialogic Reading for Family Involvement)
This interactive session will explore Dialogic Reading, a research-based process utilizing conversations around books that increase children’s vocabulary. Find out how to use Dialogic Reading in your preschool classroom and how to share with parents so they can use at home.

Adult Education

Applying Research in Reading Instruction for Adults: First Steps for Teachers
Based on the recent NIFL publication by the same title, this workshop was developed by Susan McShane, the book’s author, to introduce the components of reading that may contribute to a reading problem: alphabetics skills, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Participants will learn research-based assessment and instructional strategies for improving adults’ reading skills by addressing their needs in the reading-component areas.

Adult Education in Family Literacy: ABE Reading Instruction
This training focuses on the scientifically based skills and strategies that impact ABE reading achievement important to adult educators working in family literacy programs, reinforcing the role of parents in children’s developing language and literacy, and working toward an integrated family literacy program.

Work-Focused Strategies: Proven Results and Design
This workshop is designed to give adult education teachers tools that incorporate work-related learning with GED/literacy instruction.

Parent Involvement

All Your Parents = AYP
Parent involvement is a strategy that can support student achievement and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). When parents are actively involved in the support of children's education, both children and schools make gains. The question remains—how do teachers and schools really get parents involved at this level? All Your Parents = AYP approaches the parent involvement dilemma from a systems-change approach. Learn how teachers, parent involvement coordinators, leadership teams and parents can work together to embed parent involvement into the everyday school environment—and keep the momentum going. Based on a review of the most current literature related to parent involvement and aligned with NCLB, All Your Parents = AYP provides schools and districts with a comprehensive framework to make change in efforts to effectively engage parents.

Participants attending this training will receive a Core Set of Materials to support the beginning stages of implementation back in their schools or districts. The recommended audience for this training is teachers, parent involvement coordinators/liaisons, school leadership team members, principals, administrators, and parents who are ready for leadership responsibilities. Since this framework focuses on a team approach, it may be helpful for school staff to attend in teams.

Parent-Mentor Training
Bring this innovative training to your early childhood program and build a community of parent mentors who are engaged in supporting their children’s literacy. Parents can be trained directly or staff can attend a train-the-trainer workshop. All materials are available in English and Spanish and can be customized for Head Start or non-Head Start audiences. The training will help parents:

• Expand what they are already doing to support their child’s learning
• Better understand their child’s learning experiences and extend those experiences beyond the classroom
• Recognize new opportunities in everyday routines to support their child’s learning
• Encourage other parents to take a more active role in promoting children’s school readiness

La Lectura en Familia/Families Reading Together
This Train-the-Trainer workshop for staff working with parents of three- to five-year-olds is offered in both English and Spanish. Staff are trained in techniques to use with parents to help them support their children’s school readiness through parent-child interactions and quality children’s literature. The workshop is broken into six content areas:

• Language Development
• Phonological Awareness
• Alphabet Knowledge
• Book Knowledge
• Print Awareness
• Early Writing

Becoming Readers: Infants and Toddlers
(formerly Growing Readers Right from the Start)
In this interactive workshop, participants will connect research to practices that support oral language and early print awareness—skills that lead to later reading success. Discover activities and resources to help parents support their infant’s or toddler’s early learning experiences.

Family Money Matters
This workshop explores financial concepts for adults important for understanding and developing budgets that include short and long term financial planning. In addition, strategies that engage pre-school children in basic financial activities through literature and dramatic play are practiced. Additional ideas for application are generated by the participants as they experience the workshop.

Home Visits That Open Doors
Research indicates that implementing a successful home visiting program begins with planning and staffing. The importance of parental support of children’s literacy development also has been proven through research. Will that support be incidental or intentional? In this training, discover parent-supported activities that, done with intentionality, can make early literacy development a reality.

Parenting for Academic Success: A Curriculum for Families Learning English
This interactive training supports a new curriculum product developed by the National Center for Family Literacy in collaboration with the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) and K. Lynn Savage, Educational Consultant: Parenting for Academic Success: A Curriculum for Families Learning English. Teachers, administrators and family literacy practitioners will learn to use the curriculum, explore complete lesson plans and unique features as they plan for its implementation in a variety of program settings.

Building Literacy into Your Parent Education Curriculum
The Parent Time component in family literacy is an ideal time to build parents’ skills as their children’s first teachers. This training will provide research-based strategies that parents can learn in Parent Time and practice in PACT Time®, to impact their children’s literacy development

Connecting Parents and Elementary Schools (2-day)
This two-day training focuses on connecting elementary parents and their children’s schools, moving from typical parent involvement activities to high-quality parent engagement that supports children’s academic achievement, particularly in the area of reading instruction.

Connecting Parents and Elementary Schools: Creating Parent-Teacher Partnerships (Same as Day One of Connecting Parents and Elementary Schools)
This training focuses on themes to support parent-teacher partnerships in elementary schools, including such topics as increasing parent-teacher communication and creating family friendly schools.

Connecting Parents and Elementary Schools: Parent Engagement for Student Achievement (Same as Day Two of Connecting Parents and Elementary Schools)
This training builds on the concept of parent involvement explored in Creating Parent-Teacher Partnerships, and guides participants toward parent engagement—involving parents at such a level to impact student achievement, particularly in the area of reading instruction.

English Language Learners

Parenting for Academic Success: A Curriculum for Families Learning English
This interactive training supports a new curriculum product developed by the National Center for Family Literacy in collaboration with the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) and K. Lynn Savage, Educational Consultant: Parenting for Academic Success: A Curriculum for Families Learning English. Teachers, administrators and family literacy practitioners will learn to use the curriculum, explore complete lesson plans and unique features as they plan for its implementation in a variety of program settings.

Using Learner Stories for Language and Literacy Outcomes: Focus on ELL
This interactive training introduces a framework for using learner narratives to teach language and address themes in family life through project-based work, resulting in ways to assist immigrant families in increasing their English language skills.

La Lectura en Familia/Families Reading Together
This Train-the-Trainer workshop for staff working with parents with parents of three- to five-year-olds is offered in both English and Spanish. Staff are trained in techniques to use with parents to help them support their children’s school readiness through parent-child interactions and quality children’s literature. The workshop is broken into six content areas:

• Language Development
• Phonological Awareness
• Alphabet Knowledge
• Book Knowledge
• Print Awareness
• Early Writing

Parent-Mentor Training—Spanish Version
Bring this innovative training to your early childhood program and build a community of parent mentors who are engaged in supporting their children’s literacy. Parents can be trained directly or staff can attend a train-the-trainer workshop. All materials are available in Spanish. The training will help parents:

• Expand what they are already doing to support their child’s learning
• Better understand their child’s learning experiences and extend those experiences beyond the classroom
• Recognize new opportunities in everyday routines to support their child’s learning
• Encourage other parents to take a more active role in promoting children’s school readiness

Comprehensive Family Literacy (4 Component)

Foundations in Family Literacy
Foundations in Family Literacy provides beginning family literacy practitioners the framework needed to fully understand the comprehensive, four-component family literacy model. Foundations is designed to provide a basic overview of the principles and practices of family literacy and the research that supports those practices.

Program Administration — Even Start
This training focuses on the development and management of Even Start family literacy programs that provide high-quality, research-based services to eligible families. Participants will learn how to apply the principles of Even Start legislative, regulatory, and guidance documents, with specific emphasis given to the 15 essential elements.

Collaborating for Component Integration
Collaborating for Component Integration guides participants toward integrating all four components of a family literacy program through the creation of core messages, assessing levels of services, and developing curricular connections based on the goals, needs and interests of families.

Evaluating Your Family Literacy Program
This informative and interactive training is designed to provide family literacy practitioners and administrators with the tools and skills necessary for evaluating a four-component family literacy program. Topics such as data collection and management, reporting and use of an outside evaluator are discussed.

Recruitment and Retention in Family Literacy
This training is based on the research regarding adults’ motivation to attend educational programs as well as on their persistence in staying in the program until they have met their needs. Through this highly interactive training, participants learn how to interpret the research and apply the findings to recruitment and retention efforts in their family literacy programs.