Dear Council President,

By now you have probably decided if your council is going to have a Teachers As Readers group(s) and who will be the facilitator(s). In fact you may have already started and just need to receive your Teachers As Readers (TAR) money. Fill out the attached form and send it to us and we will forward the money to your treasurer.

Teachers As Readers is mostly made up of members of your local reading council who want to meet to discuss, learn and share their love of reading.

Some things you need to do:
• Advertise to your council members that you will be having a Teachers As Readers group or groups. Some councils have matched the TAR money from ORA and have several groups.
• Designate a facilitator(s).
• Fill out and send the enclosed form to get your TAR money and mail it to us by October 7th.
• It should be a group decision about what books to order. Your group will order books you choose from whatever companies you decide will meet your needs. Spend your money wisely. Some groups order all children’s literature, or a combination of professional books and children’s literature, or some children’s literature and some adult literature. Some groups order sets of books to be used with groups of students, others single copies to be used in their classrooms, and some councils that have more than one group share the choices with each other and then give the books to students or other adults in their community. Remember, the idea is to spread the JOY OF READING to as many as possible.
• Discuss and share children’s literature with your group
• Extend your professional knowledge
• Share the literature with your students
• READ AND SHARE with those around you
• Facilitator will share your groups success and joys with the TAR co-chairs in the spring which will include doing a book talk at the April General Board Meeting.
• Advertise to the schools within your council at TAR
• If your council received TAR money last year and turned in an end of the year TAR evaluation, your council can apply for $300. Otherwise your council can apply for $100.
• Councils will be able to apply for additional money. The council president will need to state why they need the additional money and the plan to use it. These requests are due December 1st.
• All TAR groups and the local council will be asked to complete an end of the year evaluation form in March.

<click here for a list of titles read during the 2004-2005 school year>