Reading Teacher Article

[Belinda Holbrook <holbrook@NETINS.NET>]

     Last April I had sent out a message relating my concern over an article
that was in The Reading Teacher journal. The article said that beginning
readers should take books home every night and that since most school media
centers wouldn't allow that teachers were encouraged to develop their own
classroom collections and check those out to students. Teachers were even
encouraged to check out books from the public library and loan those to their
students! I asked LM_Netters what you thought about these suggestions. Of
course you all felt that media centers had been unfairly portrayed. Many of you
encouraged me to write to The Reading Teacher and express my opinion. So I did.
     I wrote to the author of the article and also sent a copy of the letter to
the editorial staff of The Reading Teacher. I stated that my colleagues on
LM_Net would certainly be willing to help write an article about the role of
media specialist and media centers in the reading program. I have not yet heard
back from the author but this week I got a letter from the editors of The
Reading Teacher. I quote "...you mention the possibility of developing an
article for RT on the role of media centers in school literacy programs. We would 
like to encourage you strongly to submit such an article. We agree with you
that more articles on this topic are needed." How about that! They did state,
also, that any submission would be subject to the same review process as any
other contributions from the field. The letter said that they had enclosed
the "Instructions for Authors" publication, but it didn't get included. They
gave me their phone number if I had any questions about developing an article
for them. So I will call them and start from there. Thank you all for your
encouragement.
     I know many of you may be leaving the list for the summer, but if any of
you have some ideas about what I should include in an article I would love it
if you would send them to me before you go! I certainly don't want to miss
anything that would be important to say. I hope that I would do a good job in
representing all of us. Thank you for your help and ideas.

Belinda Holbrook
Madison School
Davenport, IA
holbrook@netins.net