BookTrust’s research shows that the lifelong benefits of reading for pleasure are tangible. But how can children with special educational needs gain these benefits? We asked Author Emma Steel to recommend ways to include and inspire such children and adults.
If you work in special education, you’ll know the struggle – large groups, pupils with different disabilities and difficulties, a national curriculum that is entirely inaccessible and countless hours spent trying to find a solution… sometimes, there simply isn’t one to find.
At the start of her teaching career, Emma Steel, now Head of publishing imprint Every Cherry, accepted a role at a summer play scheme and instantly fell in love with the area of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). However, when she landed her first role at a residential college for people with learning disabilities, she quickly realised that specific resources and support were in short supply.
Thus, Emma would spend her own time and money making the books on the curriculum, from Shelley’s Frankenstein right through to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, accessible for her students, who were predominantly 12–19-year-olds with conditions including Down syndrome, autism and profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD).
Along with her colleagues, Emma would work hard to make the required texts as accessible as possible for students with SEND requirements.