A little while ago I shared a resource which gave advice on revising for exams. You absolutely loved it and hundreds of readers downloaded it. So imagine how excited I was to be able to find another great resource from the same people that gives advice on how to get better marks when writing an essay…

OK, so let me start by telling you who this resource is for.

If you are dyslexic and you are finding that you can verbally articulate your learning with ease but get frustrated when you get lower than average marks in your written work, then this could be for you.

The thinking here is that a lot of dyslexic students are often great at articulating concepts verbally and hence show what wonderful learners they can be, but because they are often non-linear thinkers, it can often be a challenge to convert that lovely learning into the linear format of an essay.

Dyslexic thinkers are often great story-tellers and so use all their personal resources (tone of voice and body language etc) to tell those stories, but an essay doesn’t capture all that personal good stuff as the marking schemes for essays are weighted towards a more linear approach. So this means that when an essay is being marked, if the student hasn’t written their essay in the correct way then they will lose marks even if they know what they are talking about.

So the Essay Planner below will help you to get marks for your essays that you might normally lose out on.

The Oaka Books Essay Planner

I am going to be upfront and tell you that Oaka Books is sponsoring this article. I am telling you this because despite that I am recommending this resource because it is a great resource. My aim for this blog is to provide inspiration and information to the supporters of dyslexic learners and so I only work with companies who I feel make a difference to dyslexic learners with their products or services. What I like about Oaka Books is whilst they sell dyslexia friendly revision guides they also share a load of content for free that helps students regardless of whether they become customers or not. So this is why I am confidently telling you about this Essay Planner that they have. Usually they will charge about £14 for it but they wanted to give you access to it for free during a limited window of one month.

The essay planner is a planner for writing non-fiction essays and what it does is prompt students to apply a structure to their essays that make them easy and interesting to read.

The guide is ideal for Common Entrance, KS3 and GCSE pupils.

The guide gives a valuable insight into the following aspects of essay writing:

• Structure & Order.

• Using colour-coding.

• Preparing yourself for writing the essay.

• Making your essay interesting to read.

• Key vocabulary that helps.

Having read the guide, I am in no doubt as to the value of using this to help with writing essays especially when one is dyslexic. It helps the student to focus on making a huge impact on the person marking the essay thus accumulating higher marks.

If you would like a copy of this guide, then simply click the banner below and request your copy.