AMERICAN READING FORUM

 

Board of Directors                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

2008

Beth Frye, Chair

Corresponding Address  

2009

Cynthia Bertelsen, Vice Chair

Beth Frye

2009

Lynne Miller, Secretary

Department of Language, Reading and Exceptionalities

2008

Wanda Hedrick

Reich College of Education

2008

Enrique Puig

Appalachian State University

2007

Cindy Hendricks

P.O. Box 32085

2007

George Hruby

Boone, NC 28608-2085

 

Sarah Dowhower, Treasurer

fryeem@appstate.edu

 

Michael French, Past Chair

http://www.americanreadingforum.org

 

 

August 2007

 

Greetings American Reading Forum Members,

 

I hope this letter finds you enjoying the lingering days of summer. The 27th annual meeting of the American Reading Forum was a tremendous success.  Appreciation is extended to conference co-chair, Woody Trathen for all of his organization, planning and hard work. Thank you Woody! In addition, a special thanks goes to Michael French for his leadership as chair.  The American Reading Forum is indebted to him for his steadfast service.

 

Our next meeting will be held December 5-8, 2007, once again on Sanibel Island, Florida at the beautiful Sundial Beach and Tennis Resort.  George Hruby, 2007 Program Chair, has chosen a focus on meaning-making and comprehension development through students’ appropriation of literacy practices, entitled: Meaningfulness and Comprehension: Understanding Readers’ Understandings. Like you, I am looking forward to Nell Duke, Cynthia Lewis, Arlette Willis, and Margaret McKeown presenting our keynote addresses. I am sure these speakers will provide the impetus for many engaging and stimulating conversations throughout the conference.

 

David Bishop and his Call to Forum Committee have chosen Sam Swope's I Am A Pencil, which describes the author's three-year writing project with primary students and Catharine Compton-Lilly's Re-Reading Families: The Literate Lives of Urban Children, Four Years Later, in which she revisits the first graders of her 2003 study. Happy Reading!

 

Establishing the 2008 Program Chair needs to be a priority for all. This is urgent! We need for interested persons to come forward now. If we are going to have a conference in 2008, we need to ascertain a program chair this month. Our organization depends upon our annual conference. In addition, we are looking for Program Chairs for 2009 and 2010. Please contact us immediately if you are interested in serving as program chair.

 

As you make your arrangements for the 2007 conference, please remember to register for the conference and complete the committee interest forms.  Our organization needs for each of us to embrace these committees.  Please accept our thanks to all of you who have worked on committees and especially to you who have chaired them.  We are all grateful for your dedication, service, and time.

 

I hope you share in the vision for the American Reading Forum to continue to develop and nurture a community of practice committed to scholarly activity. I encourage each of you to expand our scholarly community by recruiting new members to the American Reading Forum, but at the same time, let us strive to maintain the environment that is so welcoming to its members. Our organization is unique in its commitment to scholarly discussion through a somewhat informal environment at the annual conferences. I see this as a positive attribute of this organization. I would hope that the organization would stay true to these characteristics as it expands membership.

 

Remember to submit your research articles to the American Reading Forum’s Online Yearbook. Many thanks are extended to Alison Heron-Hruby & George Hruby for their dedicated work as editors; we are certainly grateful for their commitment to publishing quality research.

 

On behalf of our organization, I would like to extend a very special thank you to Gary Moorman and his colleagues at Appalachian State University for the professional work they continue to provide on our web page.  This service is undeniably a credit to the American Reading Forum.

 

Again, best regards for a productive fall semester. I look forward to seeing each of you on Sanibel Island in December.

 

 

 

Best wishes,

 

 

Beth Frye, Chair