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Governor’s Early Literacy Foundation (GELF) announced its 2024-2025 Educator Advisory Council, 24 educators from rural, urban, and suburban communities across Tennessee who will help GELF determine the resources to best meet the literacy needs of students statewide. With only 35% of Tennessee third graders able to read proficiently, GELF’s Educator Advisory Council serves as a consulting body for the Foundation’s early literacy initiatives, including its statewide K-3 Home Library program that has placed more than 4.4 million books in the homes of more than 739,000 elementary school students and teachers over the program’s history.  

Twenty-four Tennessee educators were selected to serve on the 2024-2025 Educator Advisory Council, representing all three regions of the state. GELF launched the Educator Advisory Council (EAC) in 2021 to strengthen its early literacy initiatives by gaining the insight and perspectives of educators statewide. 

“Educators are the cornerstone of every child’s growth, sparking imaginations and guiding their futures,” said James Pond, GELF President. “Governor’s Early Literacy Foundation is honored to collaborate with them, helping to support their needs and to draw from their wisdom to ensure that every student and family receives the tools they need to thrive. Together we will continue to strengthen early literacy and build lifelong learners and leaders in Tennessee.” 

Led by an Executive Team, the primary responsibility of the EAC is to select the books and curate the literacy resources that students and teachers statewide will be mailed through GELF’s K-3 Home Library program in Summer and Fall 2025. Through its K-3 Home Library program, GELF collaborates with Scholastic to mail high-quality, age-appropriate books to kindergarten through third grade students and teachers over the summer to combat learning loss and support student learning in the home.  

Third grade reading proficiency is the benchmark where children transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” and is a key indicator for a child’s future educational success and workforce readiness.  

A two-decade long study found that the presence of a home library increases children’s academic success, vocabulary development, attention and job attainment. Research from Statewide surveys conducted by GELF reveal 33% of participating students have 100+ books in their home as a result of the K-3 Home Library program. Additionally, 97% of parents reported that their children were excited to receive the books and 96% reported the books were valuable to their family. 

In Summer 2024, GELF’s K-3 Home Library program mailed 1.3 million books to the homes of 230,000 rising first, second, and third grade students and teachers across Tennessee. In Fall 2024, GELF will mail 102,000 books to the homes of 17,000 rising kindergartners in 41 pilot school districts across the state, bridging the gap between its Birth-5 Book Delivery program in partnership with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. In Fall 2025, GELF plans to expand this program to serve rising kindergarten students statewide. This expansion will give Tennessee children the opportunity to receive books at no cost from birth to third grade. 

The EAC helps direct GELF’s K-3 programming decisions aimed at meeting students and families where they are with the resources they need to strengthen early literacy and combat learning loss statewide. 

“The single most important activity for building knowledge in reading is reading aloud to children,” said Jenni Mason, EAC Member. “I am thrilled to be part of the EAC for a third term. It is an honor to collaborate with educators across the state to provide literature packs to our budding Tennessee readers!” 

“There is nothing they [students] will want to do or be as fully realized and contributing members of society where they won’t need to be able to read,” said Catina Jennings, EAC Kindergarten Focus Group Leader. “I believe the mission of the Governor’s Early Literacy Foundation to provide children with the resources, guidance, and books they need in order to become lifelong learners is another part of the puzzle. This organization has begun to build the home libraries of many children in Tennessee who might not have had the opportunity to receive new books that were so thoughtfully chosen for their age groups. I know the work we are doing is going to impact the recipients for years to come.”