NCTE is a professional home for literacy educators across roles, disciplines, and contexts. Key constituencies include: 

• PreK through college –teachers and administrators 

• Students

• Literacy researchers and advocacy professionals 

Primary professions of NCTE members include (but are not limited to):  

• Classroom teachers and professors  

• Educational administrators, deans, and department chairs 

• Librarians 

• Reading/Writing/Literacy specialists and coaches 

• State policy coordinators and administrators 

• Student/Preservice teachers 

NCTE offers three main types of membership: Standard, Student, and Emeritus. 

Standard Membership – $59 
This is NCTE’s most popular membership and provides access to the full suite of NCTE offerings (see “What do I get with my NCTE membership”). Individual members may also vote in NCTE  elections.  

Student Membership – $30 
NCTE Student Membership provides a professional home for undergraduate or graduate students preparing for careers as literacy educators, helping them expand their expertise and start teaching careers with tools and resources from NCTE. Student members are not eligible to vote in NCTE elections but have access to all other member benefits. 

Emeritus Membership – $30
Fully retired members who have held NCTE membership for 15+ years are eligible for this membership level. This provides an opportunity to remain connected to NCTE and receive updates on ELA news and engagement opportunities. 

Additional Memberships:

School Membership
NCTE’s School Membership Program is designed to help educators improve literacy—as a team. Groups of 10 or more that join receive a complimentary electronic journal in addition to the electronic member magazine.  

Institutional Subscriptions
The National Council of Teachers of English is the source for English language arts resources for your staff. An NCTE Institutional Subscription allows a subscription to any one of our 10 professional journals for a library or staff. 

For additional information regarding any of our membership options, please contact NCTE’s Customer Service Center at 877-369-6283. 

NCTE membership provides access to: 

Preferred Pricing—Exclusive discounts on conventions, meetings, and professional learning materials spanning the full spectrum of literacy education and advocacy. Members also save more than 40% on NCTE Annual Convention registration and receive a 20% discount in the NCTE Store, including on a wide range of NCTE-published books written by teachers for teachers. 

Online Community and Network Events—Engaged online community with hundreds of collaborative professional learning events, including author talks with Q&A sessions, members-only webinars, and online series—all free of charge to NCTE members. 

NCTE Journals—Full subscription to the quarterly members-only magazine, The Council Chronicle, plus access to the comprehensive NCTE digital journal archive containing more than 1,800 issues of ten professional journals featuring current research, trends, and teaching strategies for educators at all levels, at a 66% discount. 

Intellectual Freedom Center Resources—New and timely resources for educators as they advocate for books and defend titles that are being challenged in their classrooms and school libraries, including NCTE’s book rationale database that features more than 1,400 titles and is searchable by title, author and grade level. 

Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources—Standards-based lesson plans, teaching ideas, videos, and online tools to help students improve their reading and writing. 

Member Insurance Programs—Discounts on a variety of insurance programs, including professional liability, life, health, and auto plans through the Trust for Insuring Educators. 

Log in to your NCTE account using your email and password. Your membership number is listed on the “Member/Account Profile” page.

You can access your journals by logging in with your email and password.  You can access your journals by clicking the “Access Current Subscriptions” button on the Member/Account Profile page.

You can renew your membership by using this link.

Yes. If you will need to use a purchase order for your membership, just contact the NCTE Customer Service team at 877-369-6283 or via email at membership@ncte.org, and they can assist with this process.  All purchase orders should be paid within 90 days from the invoice date.

NCTE’s Guidelines to Students’ Right to Read and other censorship related information is located online in our Intellectual Freedom Center.

We offer IP Authentication access for our Institutional Subscribers. To activate this service please provide the IP addresses with your order. When payment is received for a subscription and the IP addresses have been provided, access will be available within 48 hours from receipt of this information. If your institution already has a current subscription and wishes to have IP Authentication access, please contact Customer Service by phone at 877-369-6283 or online at our Contact Us page.

You can view our available standards information online.

If you purchase your subscription through our online store, we run the access program every 3 hours starting at 7 am Central Time and running through 10 pm Central Time. If you join between 10 pm Central Time and 7 am Central Time, your access will be given during the 7 am Central Time update.

If you purchased your subscription by phone, please allow 48 hours processing time if done Monday through Thursday or 72 hours if done on Friday.

Visit the member benefits page to find membership information, highlights of resources, and sample journals to share with your students.

School group memberships are not transferable. During the next renewal period for your school group membership, you will have an opportunity to add or remove members under your current group membership arrangement.

When you join NCTE or renew your membership, your membership dues are used for the delivery of NCTE member benefits. You may cancel your membership at any time, but membership dues are not refundable. You will begin to receive renewal notices within a few months prior to your membership expiration date. If at that time you wish to discontinue your membership, simply do not reply to the notices. 

NCTE recognizes the need for institutions to use purchase orders to cover larger membership orders. All purchase orders should be paid within 90 days from the invoice date.