How to Get Reading Materials
(At Relatively Little or No Personal Cost)

Personal

• Ask for gift certificates to bookstores for holiday presents from your family and friends. It makes gift-giving easier for them, and you can build up your classroom library.
• Drop broad hints to friends and family (many will be happy to help, especially if you teach in a low-income area).
• Attend garage sales, publishers’ warehouse sales, and library book sales (scholastic book clubs has a warehouse sale every May for teachers. It’s amazing.  See http://teacher.scholastic.com/fairs/warehouse/).
• Visit thrift stores and discount bookstores frequently (some will give free books to teachers).
• “In Search of Free Books” by Pam McKeta has more great ideas and resources.  (http://www.readingrockets.org/articles/57)

At School

• Set up book swaps for students to exchange books, magazines, and comics among themselves.  My class had a "Secret Santa" book exchange that was a great success.
• Request school copies of the local newspaper.
• Send a wish list of books to parents and/or suggest that parents donate books to your classroom library for their children’s birthdays or for holidays.
• Look for grant opportunities. They’re out there. (For example, see www.donorschoose.org and http://www.wilbooks.com/freebooks/free_books_app.php).
• Use book clubs (e.g., Scholastic, Trumpet). They’re cheap, the books are good, and you can earn bonus points.
• Use the school and public libraries to keep your classroom collection constantly changing.
• Take your class to visit the public library and get library cards.
• If you have a choice, use money that’s now used for whole class sets to build up your classroom library.
• Rotate classroom collections with other teachers.
• Organize a book drive with other teachers in your school.
• Ask school sponsors to contribute to a book fund; use the money to build classroom collections.
• If your school uses a reward-based reading program like Accelerated Reader, request that the rewards be books instead of other prizes.
• Teachers are always telling me that museums and other institutions are dying to hand out free books. For example, the Holocaust Museum in Houston will send you group sets of books about tolerance on a variety of levels (elementary). All you have to do is ask!