Helping a dyslexic student with
essay writing
Analyse the question
Useful tools
• Visuwords:
http://www.visuwords.com/
• Howjsay:
http://www.howjsay.com/
• “define: ____” in Google
Lists of essay key words
• Stella Cottrell’s “Study Skills Handbook” pg 143
Task planner
What do I know already?
What do I need to find
out?
How/where?
When by?
•If difficulties with taking notes/reading books encourage alternatives, e.g. discussion
of topic with study buddies, accessing information in alternative formats e.g. videos,
sound files, diagrams, PowerPoints etc.
Use Dogpile at: http://www.dogpile.com/ to search multiple sites, e.g. for videos.
•Consider screen readers, e.g. Read and Write Gold or free ones such as DSpeech at:
http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/
Advice from University of Sheffield
http://dyslexstudyskills.group.shef.ac.uk/writing/pages/sitemap.html
Template for essay plan
Introduction
Introduction
• Analogy – “A set of directions to get from one
place to another. Shows your reader the route
you are going to take.”
Paragraphs
Conclusion
Planning
• Will depend on the student’s preferred
learning style, strengths and weaknesses.
• May involve: mindmapping, bullets, Post-It
notes, index cards, storyboards, flowcharts,
drafting and editing.
Bookmarking and referencing
Zotero: http://www.zotero.org/
Further work
Could focus on:
• using other forms of Assistive Technology such
as Dragon NS to create first draft.
• maximising use of everyday software, e.g. in
Word, use the Auto Correct function to spell
‘Foucault’ every time ‘fou’ is typed or use
‘Find and Replace’ to correct multiple
instances of a wrong spelling.