Essay Writing for Adolescents with Language and Learning Difficulties

‘This book, Essay writing for adolescents with language and learning difficulties: Practical Strategies for English Teachers, came at the perfect timing for me supporting a student in Year 10 to write essays. Although the book is essentially about essay structure, Knight has at several points introduced useful, succinct sections on sentence-level grammatical concepts. These sections can clearly be adapted by teachers for use in a range of essay writing contexts. Ultimately, nothing is left to chance in this book - all the essay barriers faced by students (and teachers) have been addressed. The extensive worked examples provide the opportunity for teacher workshops to be planned, during which the strategies can be rehearsed before teachers take them into the classroom. Even though Knight states that the book is not purposed for general classroom instruction, like any good instruction, I have noticed that anything that works for students with learning difficulties also works for all other students. This book has its place in any secondary English teacher’s toolkit, as well as for speech-language pathologists and consultants. Even better, it can even have its place in the classroom for Tier 1 instruction as well as in any learning support setting.’

Jacinta Conway, specialist teacher and Director of Impact Tuition, Australia.