READ TRAINING ON-LINE

Dear R.E.A.D. Teams,

It has always been the mission and goal of ITA's R.E.A.D. Program to help as many children as possible to discover the joys of reading and books while hopefully avoiding a too-narrow focus--by being too territorial, too exclusive about therapy organization affiliations, or seeking financial gain. We have always heavily subsidized the costs of our training materials, program development, and also the costs of our R.E.A.D./AAT conferences in 2005 and 2007, relying on grants, sponsorships and donations to help us make it all possible and affordable for you.

Now, ITA has received a bequest from the estate of Betty Keuffel, ITA's longest-serving volunteer, who passed away on February 19, 2010. Betty loved books and dogs! She loved the R.E.A.D. program even though she was never able to participate herself. One of the things her bequest will now make possible is for us to lower the price of the R.E.A.D. training package.

Here is how we are going to do it: We have mounted the 25-minute R.E.A.D. Team Training DVD online. This means potential R.E.A.D. teams can now purchase the manual alone (either for individual sale or in bulk, as before) and go online to watch the training DVD.

In addition, we have also put "R.E.A.D." at School" and "R.E.A.D. at the Library" online, so all of you will have all those resources accessible at all times.

You may see all these things yourself, as often as you desire, by going to:

www.YouTube. com/ita4me

(We should note that DVD copies of all three of these productions will still be available for purchase for those who do not have internet access.)

We are very excited to be able to do this! We are hoping that the lower cost will make it possible for more new teams to join our ever-expanding network of R.E.A.D. teams throughout the world and keep the program's standards and credibility strong and consistent.