Tell me about your book?

My book is, “Alliteration Boosts Communication.” Prior to this past year, I was a pre-K teacher in Columbus City Schools. I taught at Trevitt Elementary School. I have pretty much been in pre-K the entire time I have been in education. I wanted to make sure our kids get robust vocabulary words. Words they could hear, pick up and learn. A lot of the words in this book I heard and didn’t know. I had to go back, look at and learn. I know our four and five year old’s are like sponges. If you give them the content, they will learn the content and they will love it. I wrote this book because we had visitors from the state to check on us for Step Up to Quality and policy compliance. When the visitor was in my room, I used the word melancholy. The visitor said the use of that word is developmentally inappropriate for that level. I didn’t have to answer. A child came up to me and said, “Mr. Carey you are sad. “The visitor asked me if I wanted to be on the state committee. That gave me the idea to put this book together. Initially, it was going to be a poster to teach kids letters, sounds, and decode pictures. Then, I decided to put it in a book.

Why go into early education?

My degree is in Organizational Communication and Public Relations. I was supposed to take a job in LA. My daughter came and I decided to stay here. I became a substitute teacher. I got hired at Lincoln Park as an instructional assistant in pre-K. I love the fact that you can watch the kids grow from crying the first day when mom and dad leave, to at the end of the year naming all the planets. They are sponges, they soak everything up. I thought I would teach pre-K; but, I still had my heart in the media. It took Ms. Williams and Dr. Smith telling me to get my teaching license. I got my teaching license. Starting this school year, I will be the PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention Support) coordination for region 2. I will be helping out with social and emotional learning. We have a team.

Anything I didn’t ask you that you want to add?

The book is self-published. I put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It is a proven fact that kids’ vocabulary words will increase with this book. This is the first book. I have two more that I am writing. If you need a good book of some vocabulary words that you might need to look up, then this book is for you. The illustrations are top notch. Wheeler Lentz was my illustrator. He did a fantastic job of bringing my vision to life.