We spend a great deal of time asking how we can encourage students to read, but we rarely discuss how to make the best use of the experts: the authors.

There is certainly an expense to an author visit - authors do not earn much money from writing at all (less than the minimum wage on average!) and they, like the rest of us, need to earn a living. But a great author visit to a school can give you material to work with for many weeks, across many year groups and in many subjects.

And those who are illustrators, too, often leave behind valuable original pieces of illustration created especially for the school.

So how do you make the most of an author visit?

1. Pick the right author

Firstly, choose the right author by thinking ahead.

Books such as MG Leonard’s Beetle Boy series and Christopher Edge’s The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day touch on aspects of science.

Meanwhile, Chris Priestley’s The Last of the Spirits and Mister Creecher allow students to explore 19th century literature - one is based on the work of Dickens and the other on Mary Shelley. So if you are preparing Years 5 and 6 for a move up to secondary, exploring 19th century language might be a great option.

Also think about illustrators - a good comic creator (take a look at The Phoenix Comic) can help students think about structure, form and pace in writing, and a great nature illustrator such as Jackie Morris or Cathy Fisher could also help students explore the concept of close observation. All these things fit well with other subjects.

2. Be prepared

Prepare your students, as well as yourself and the author. Write a timetable and organise rooms. Let the author have the timetable so they know what is happening and can structure their session to make the most of the day. Communicate with them about what you want to achieve - too many authors are booked and are then just expected to turn up to a school with no information. That is just a waste of a wonderful opportunity.

3. Build links with your local bookseller

Team up with a local bookshop to supply books to buy, and notify parents - a child being able to take home a signed book dedicated to them by an author they have met is hugely inspiring. A pop-up bookshop at the end of the school day also allows parents to be involved, to meet the author, too, and to hear about what the children have been doing.

Ask the bookseller to do a pre-session in assembly introducing the work of your author to the students. Get all the relevant year teachers involved and attending, too.

We have one local bookseller who talks to the students about how a book is made - about what an editor does, about how many drafts it might take to write a book (perhaps the students might think about doing more than one draft of their homework…).

She also shows them original illustrations complete with publishers’ mark-ups and corrections, so the students can see how illustration is edited.

In the summer, to celebrate the culmination of our Year of Reading, we held our very own reading festival based loosely on the Hay Festival - but all on one day. We contacted several authors and illustrators who agreed to be part of the festival. With five authors and illustrators on the same day, it took months of planning, but with the support of our local bookseller, Kenilworth Books, which provided a great pop-up bookshop, it was a great success.

4. Build excitement

Get everyone excited about the visit. Do some research about the author in a class session or a home assignment. This is important because it gives students time to think about which questions they want to ask. Can you move the students away from asking the standard ‘Where do you get your ideas from’?

5. Use the help available

The Book Trust, Authors Aloud and The Society of Authors all have very helpful sections that can support you through organising and making the most of an author visit to your school.

We are lucky to be living in a really great age of writing and illustration for children; and also to be able to use technology to communicate and arrange visits that really can have an extraordinary effecy on a child’s interest in reading, writing and drawing for pleasure. Let’s ensure we make the most of it. 

Deborah J Texeira is assistant headteacher at Paddox Primary School, Rugby. She tweets @debtex
Tamsin Rosewell is a bookseller at Kenilworth Books, Kenilworth and tweets @autumnrosewell