Guest Post: Lorraine Carey - Hooking Those Educators

 My first children’s book, Mysteries of the Red Coyote Inn, was released just this August. While I have been an educator for the past thirty-six years and a reading specialist for twenty, I was in business to know not only what children crave but teachers also. I had received so many sample books from new authors and only wishing they had come with a lesson plan or some enrichment activity. I usually ended up designing something myself to accompany the book.

As a children’s reading specialist I wrote my novels to target middle grade to young adults using low readability and high interest. I knew how hard it was to find interesting material to use with middle grades without turning to a very limited supply that was available at the time and way too juvenile for my students.

While I was waiting for my novel to be published I set to work designing a comprehension enrichment for my novels since I know how big an issue reading comprehension is among readers. I knew it would help to increase my sales. Yes, I had a market. I also signed up for Authors Who Skype and offer free lessons for classes.

I have the enrichment worksheets available on my site. I had designed them for both novels. Jonathan’s Locket will be released very soon.

If you are a children’s author I would highly suggest designing an enrichment activity or packet to accompany your book as a bonus. Not only will the children benefit, but teachers will be more apt to order your book. It could be something as little as a fun activity to an all comprehensive unit study for older children.

I am toying with the idea of offering a service for children’s authors where I will  create supplemental educational materials to accompany  their novels.

Here I go again, always coming up with new ideas to motivate our children.

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About Lorraine Carey

Lorraine Carey is a passionate Children’s Reading Specialist, Author, Teacher and a Book Reviewer .    

Years of teaching experience in different states, has given her a vast background knowledge of different cultures and teaching modalities as well as a deep understanding of children’s reading needs.

This, combined with her love for Paranormal stories, inspired her to start writing her own books, which now inspire many students around the world to dream, imagine and create .

She currently lives on Grand Cayman with her husband  and their dog, Matty. She is a part time reading specialist for a small private school on the island. When she is not writing, she can be found reading, beach hopping and boating around the island on their boat, The Angelica.

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