This article illustrates the importance of classroom discourse and its effect on the writing of students with dyslexia; specifically, this article examines the nature of discourse that took place within the context of two writing classrooms at The Garden School (pseudonym). When teaching students with dyslexia, the teachers in this study followed the five paragraph model, one very strictly and the other more freely. Findings are discussed in terms of how the structure of the writing activities affected the students' writing and cognitive efforts.