Introduction

Maths can sometimes present challenges for pupils, but Clicker offers a variety of tools that make learning both accessible and engaging for children of all abilities. By using interactive resources and visual aids, Clicker enhances pupils’ understanding and boosts their confidence in a wide range of mathematical topics. In this guide, we will explore how you can use Clicker to support your teaching and help your learners excel in areas such as number, measurement and geometry.

Training webinars: Maths subject spotlight

Our subject spotlight training webinars are designed to help Clicker users discover how the software can support teaching across various subjects. These sessions provide valuable insights and practical advice for integrating Clicker into your curriculum.

In our maths subject spotlight webinars, we:

• Offer expert tips for navigating Clicker’s resource library, ensuring you can easily find the activities needed for your lessons
  
  
• Showcase a selection of ready-made resources developed by our Curriculum Team, which are available as part of your subscription
  
  
• Share effective strategies for using Clicker in teaching Maths, suitable for any year group

Here are the recordings of our most recent maths training webinars:

Number

Developing a strong understanding of number is key to mastering many areas of maths. Clicker’s visual and interactive tools allow pupils to build deeper connections with mathematical concepts, particularly those who benefit from seeing and manipulating objects to bring these abstract ideas to life.

Addition and subtraction

Number tiles offer a multisensory approach to learning mathematical concepts. Using number tiles on Clicker complement the use of practical apparatus and can enhance your learners' early number and calculating skills.

Examples from LearningGrids:

• The Number Tiles 1-10 Talk Set can be used to practise the recognition of the number each tile represents (subitising), as well as to reinforce the reading of numbers up to 10. They aid the transition from using concrete resources to pictorial resources.
  
  
• Matching Sets offer an engaging multisensory approach to understand basic number relationships including number bonds.
  
  
• Resources like the Addition Board help visualise the properties of addition - such as commutativity- and aid the transition from using concrete resources to pictorial resources.

These resources provide scaffolded support, making them ideal for a range of abilities.

Multiplication and division

Many pupils are introduced to multiplication and division by linking them with repeated addition and grouping, helping pupils visualise these concepts. Clicker’s interactive resources break down these operations into digestible chunks, making them a great way to practice multiplication and learn multiplication facts.

Examples from LearningGrids:

• Repeated Addition Using Arrays provides pupils with visual aids to understand multiplication as repeated addition.
  
  
• Common Multiples and Factors offer a great way to structure an investigation into the products and factors of given numbers.
  
  
• Clicker also includes Practice Sets to boost pupils' confidence and familiarity with multiplication facts.

Place value

Place value is a cornerstone of mathematical understanding. Clicker’s resources use visuals such as base ten blocks to show pupils how numbers are built up or broken down, which is essential for teaching partitioning and regrouping.

Examples from LearningGrids:

• Tens – Read a Book introduces multiples of ten, while Tens and Ones – Read a Book lets pupils break down two-digit numbers.
  
  
• Interactive activities like these develop strong mental fluency. They reinforce the concept of place value in a practical way as children explore the foundations of number.

Measurement

Measurement can often feel intangible for pupils, but with Clicker’s visual and scaffolded resources, learners can confidently apply mathematical principles to real-world contexts.

Money

A practical area for teaching measurement is working with money. Clicker’s resources in LearningGrids help pupils recognise coin values, count money, and perform operations involving sums and calculations.

Examples from LearningGrids:

• The Recognising Coins – Read It Yourself Clicker Book familiarises pupils with the different coin values, reinforcing identification and value recognition.
  
  
• Money Targets Connect Sets enable pupils to practise basic arithmetic using money sums and understand currency more practically.
  
  
• Tens and Ones Coins use the same methods to explore value, emphasising understanding both money and place value.

Geometry

Geometry requires visual and spatial reasoning, so using Clicker’s resources helps bring these concepts to life in the classroom.

3-D shapes

Identifying and understanding 3-D shapes is crucial for pupils’ spatial reasoning, and Clicker’s interactive resources provide them with fun and engaging activities.

Example from LearningGrids:

• 3-D Shape Hunt – Read a Book introduces pupils to various 3-D shapes (e.g., cubes, spheres, and cones), and asks them to identify them in the real world.
  
  
• Shape Scavenger Hunt Clicker Board turn a lesson into an interactive, hands-on exploration that pupils can carry out outdoors or in the classroom, encouraging them to link geometric concepts with the world around them.

Conclusion

Clicker offers a broad array of resources that can support and enhance your teaching across various areas of maths, from number operations and place value to geometry and measurement. By incorporating interactive and visual materials into your lessons, you help pupils build relationships between the abstract and real-world application of maths.

Explore LearningGrids today to discover more of Clicker's accessible resources and meet the needs of your learners. By using Clicker’s interactive tools, you can empower pupils to experience greater success in maths while making learning engaging and accessible for everyone in your classroom.

Why is reading so important?

In secondary schools, students are increasingly expected to access their learning through reading - whether it’s a slide presentation, printed document, or webpage. Reading is a fundamental skill that allows students to engage with the curriculum. For struggling readers, this creates a significant challenge.

In mixed-ability classrooms, some students may ask for a slide to stay on the screen longer while others are ready to move on. In schools that use ability-based groupings (sets), teachers may find it even harder to support struggling readers effectively, particularly when no additional classroom support is available.

Since reading is the gateway to learning across most subjects, it’s vital that students can confidently and independently engage with lesson resources. For students who are behind with reading, targeted support can significantly enhance their ability to learn and succeed across the curriculum.

Identifying students who need reading support – ‘Thousands of year 7s struggle with reading’

The government’s Reading Framework (July 2023) and an Ofsted blog from 2022 highlight the importance of reading across all subjects in secondary school. These documents stress that reading skills are essential for students to succeed in every lesson, not just in English. All teachers are expected to support students’ reading, helping them understand and use subject-specific language in their work.

However, for many year 7 students, especially those who struggle with reading, the transition to secondary school can be difficult. They are expected to read a range of texts with complex vocabulary and different structures. If students have trouble understanding these texts, it can make school feel frustrating and overwhelming.

Why identifying struggling readers is important

The transition from primary to secondary school is a tough time for struggling readers. They face new challenges, such as reading complex words and learning new vocabulary that is specific to each subject. If students don’t have strong reading skills, they may struggle to keep up with lessons and lose confidence in their abilities.

How teachers can identify struggling readers

Teachers can identify struggling readers by looking out for the following signs:

Difficulty understanding subject texts: If students have trouble understanding the words and concepts in their subjects, they may be struggling with reading.

Limited vocabulary: Students who use simple words instead of more academic ones may not have the vocabulary needed to explain their ideas fully.

Trouble with unfamiliar words: Struggling readers may find it hard to sound out or understand new words, especially the complex terms used in different subjects.

Avoiding reading tasks: Students who avoid reading or seem reluctant to engage with reading tasks may be struggling with comprehension.

Reading slowly: If students are reading at a slower pace than others, it could be a sign that they’re having difficulty understanding the material.

Negative feelings about reading and school: Students who express frustration or dislike for reading may be feeling discouraged because they struggle with it.

By identifying these signs early, teachers can offer the support struggling readers need to improve their skills and feel more confident in their learning.

How does reading ability impact struggling readers’ learning?

Struggling readers often fall behind their peers because their comprehension - and overall understanding—is limited. Without the ability to read fluently and accurately, their working memory becomes overloaded. This puts them at an immediate disadvantage in subjects where reading is necessary to access information. Struggling readers may:

• Have difficulty understanding what they read
  
• Struggle to recall prior knowledge or relevant information
  
• Find it hard to connect new ideas to existing knowledge

Improving reading skills is crucial but takes time. In the meantime, teachers must provide scaffolding and accessible resources to ensure students can still participate meaningfully in lessons.

Accessible resources don’t solve reading difficulties but can reduce the impact on broader learning, helping students stay engaged and make progress while they work towards age-appropriate reading levels.

How can DocReader support struggling readers?

The DocReader in DocsPlus is a game-changer for struggling readers, giving them the tools to access written content independently and confidently.

By reading text aloud and highlighting each word as it’s spoken, the DocReader makes worksheets, exam papers, and other resources instantly accessible. This means students don’t have to rely on constant teacher support and can complete their working with growing independence.

For students who find reading a challenge, the DocReader provides that extra bit of support to help them understand and process information at their own pace. For example, students can:

• Listen to questions or instructions as often as needed
  
• Break down large pieces of text into manageable chunks
  
• Work through lesson materials independently

How can using DocReader prepare struggling readers for exams?

When students use the DocReader regularly, it becomes their ‘normal way of working.’ This familiarity is especially useful for exams. Instead of requiring a human reader, students can use DocsPlus to access exam materials independently. This approach not only builds their confidence but also reduces pressure on schools by saving resources.

How can students use DocReader to access the curriculum?

The DocReader is a flexible tool with many features to support struggling readers. Here’s how it can help:

1. Explore different ways to listen – Students can listen to text read aloud in chunks, by word, or from a specific point in the document.
   
2. Use Dual View – Students can display a PDF side-by-side with their writing, making it easier to reference source material while working.
   
3. Convert a range of files – Teachers can save PowerPoints, web pages, or even scanned textbook pages as PDFs for use in the DocReader.
   
4. Write responses directly in interactive PDFs – Students can complete tasks and answer questions within the same document.
   
5. Use OCR tools – Optical Character Recognition can convert image-based PDFs into readable formats, expanding the range of accessible materials.

Explore different ways to listen

There are so many ways to make text accessible to students using DocReader - which is especially useful for struggling readers who require a lot of support.

You can highlight a chunk of text and then use the ‘Play’ button in the top toolbar to hear it read out with our realistic speech feedback.

You can also use the red carat marker to indicate where you want the DocReader to start reading. Place the carat anywhere on the page by clicking. When you go to Play, DocReader will read the text from that carat onwards. You can then pause the speech at any point, perhaps to answer a question or check the task.

There are also ‘Speak next word’ and ‘Speak previous word’ arrows either side of ‘Play’ in the top toolbar. These allow you to listen to specific words easily or progress through the text word by word.

Use Dual View

Dual View is a fantastic tool that enables students to access their source material, questions to answer, glossaries, or other text files while working on their writing in the Document.

Open up the Page View settings with the icon in the top-right of the screen and toggle on ‘Dual View’ to turn it on. This will then display your DocReader document alongside the Document the student is writing in.

Students can move seamlessly between the text they’re working with and their piece of writing as needed – a game changer for students who struggle with poor working memory!

Convert a range of files

DocReader allows you to open any PDF for speech support, but did you know that many other files can be saved in PDF format, making them accessible in DocReader?

This promotes so much flexibility in the classroom. You can:

• Take a MS PowerPoint file you’ve produced for your class and make it accessible in DocsPlus for struggling readers to refer back to.

• Save a webpage with key information for students to access as a PDF using the Print to PDF function built into most operating systems.
  
• Scan a page from a physical textbook using your phone and upload it in PDF format to use in DocsPlus.

There are so many ways for students to access the material they need with the speech support through the DocReader.

Write responses directly into interactive PDFs

Dual View is a fantastic tool for supporting struggling readers with longer pieces of writing but, sometimes, you might prefer to keep shorter answers in the same document as the questions.

The DocReader is compatible with interactive PDFs which would allow students to type their responses directly into the PDF.

There are many tools available that allow you to convert standard PDFs to interactive versions. This is a fantastic option for worksheets with a series of shorter questions or tables to complete or even for homework tasks.

Use OCR tools

Not every PDF file is made equal! Some PDFs are closer to an image of a document, rather than a text file, which means the DocReader is unable to identify the text for speech support.

Fortunately, you can use online OCR tools (Optical Character Recognition) to resolve this. These will take your PDF file and convert it into a format that DocsPlus can use.

This means that virtually any PDF can then be used alongside the DocReader to support students in developing and enhancing their literacy skills.

Want to know more?

• Learn more about how to use the DocReader to support your struggling readers with our tutorials for Windows/Mac PCs or iPads and Chromebooks.
  
• Support students learning to use the DocReader with our DocsPlus for Students videos.
  
• Discover the benefits of using the DocReader and other DocsPlus tools as part of your access arrangement provision for struggling readers.
  
• Stay up to date with DocsPlus updates and resources in our DocsPlus Community Facebook group.
  
• Learn how you can use WorkSpaces in DocsPlus to support students in planning non-fiction writing tasks.
  
• Book a free subscriber support meeting with one of our consultants to discuss maximising your use of DocsPlus.

In our recent DocsPlus & Dyslexia webinar, we asked attendees to share the main literacy challenges their students struggle with.  

94% told us that their students find it difficult to plan and organise their ideas. 

Planning is such a crucial part of the writing journey because it: 

• Helps students organize their thoughts and create more coherent final pieces. 
  
  
• Reduces the anxieties associated with writing. 
  
  
• Improves time management and helps students to meet deadlines. 
  
  
• Helps students develop links throughout their writing and to present their ideas logically. 
  
  
• Leads to stronger writing skills and academic success. 

With that in mind, here are three ways you can use DocsPlus to help students organise and plan their work: 

1. Organise ideas with mind maps

One helpful approach is to teach students how to create outlines or mind maps to plan their writing. This can help them visually see the structure of their ideas and how they connect to each other. Also, giving students pre-made graphic organisers or templates helps guide them throughout the planning process. 

The challenges students often face when creating mind maps include: 

• Visual-spatial challenges: mind maps are very visual but deciding where to write each section, how big to draw a ‘bubble’, or running out of paper can stop students from starting the planning process.
  
  
• Cognitive overload: some students find planning their ideas, the mechanics of writing and presenting it visually collectively overwhelming.  

WorkSpace

DocsPlus’ WorkSpace is a fantastic tool for organising ideas. Students can create them in the moment using one of the six templates provided. LearningGrids offers many pre-made resources for different subjects and writing styles, covering a wide range of topics. 

Using WorkSpace, students can: 

• Have their key words read back to them at the click of a button,
  
  
• Focus on the content first, because WorkSpace adjusts the bubble size and layout automatically,
  
  
• Use pre-made planning grids so that everyone has a successful starting point.  

Students can use our writing frames and planners to organise their ideas for essays across a range of subjects. Particular favourites of DocsPlus customers include our Essay Planner WorkSpace, the Writing to Advise Planner, and the Recount Planner. These are fantastic for helping students to plan a clear cohesive piece of curriculum writing. 

How does WorkSpace help dyslexic learners? 

DocsPlus reduces many of the reading and writing barriers commonly experienced by dyslexia learners because it: 

• Encourages visual learning which can make concepts easier to understand and remember.
  
  
• Offers instant reading support with a right-click.
  
  
• Requires no physical writing, students can utilise spell check, word prediction and record their ideas verbally… 

2. Record ideas verbally first 

Another useful strategy for students to organise their thoughts before writing is to record their ideas verbally first. 

Recording ideas aloud is a great way to brainstorm and collect new ideas before starting the writing process. This method can also help students who struggle with writing to explain their ideas more clearly. 

Practically, recording ideas as part of the planning phase can be a challenge if you need to set up separate pieces of equipment to do so, and it can be difficult to keep track of which audio notes belong with which piece of work if students are working on multiple projects. 

Voice Notes

Voice Notes in DocsPlus are an excellent tool for students who struggle to remember their ideas. Voice Notes use a built-in microphone so they are easy to record. Students can delete Voice Notes, re-record them, and they are always available to listen to on the page. 

Using Voice Notes, students can: 

• Record directly into the DocsPlus Document they are working on
  
  
• Capture content and structure ideas or reminders of the task.
  
  
• Listen to their Voice Notes whenever they want 

How can Voice Notes help dyslexic learners?

Recording ideas first can help students produce more logical and well-structured essays. Here’s how Voice Notes can help dyslexic learners plan and organise their writing: 

• Students don’t need to write and the associated difficulties with spelling, grammar and handwriting.
  
  
• Recording ideas improves students’ focus on content because they don’t need to think about the mechanics of writing.
  
  
• Speaking out loud can encourage further thinking so learners may make connections they might not have noticed otherwise. 

3. Provide key vocabulary

Providing key words boosts students' understanding of the subject and improves their ability to clearly communicate their ideas. This can be especially helpful for EAL students, or those who have difficulty remembering key terms. 

With key vocabulary support, students can feel more confident as they organise their ideas into paragraphs. Having access to a list of key words can help students organise their thoughts as they write, using the vocabulary to structure the content of each paragraph, and how each paragraph links.  

Students might struggle to access key vocabulary because: 

• They are overwhelmed by the number of words given to them. 
  
  
• They find it difficult to decode or read new vocabulary. 
  
  
• It can be difficult to remember to use key vocabulary and to copy it accurately.  

Wordbars 

Wordbars collate topic keywords, including tier vocabulary, so they are easy for students to include in their writing. Wordbars are word grids with tabs for clear organisation. 

Using Wordbars, students can: 

• Right-click on any word to listen to it first.
  
  
• Use the tabs to organise their writing – tabs can include key words for each paragraph or section.
  
  
• Reduce the cognitive load otherwise required to remember and include vocabulary with point-and-click access.  

Explanation Frame or Shakespeare Sentence Stems provide sentence starters and key phrases to help students structure their writing. Writing frames can support students write about a range of topics across the curriculum. 

How do Wordbars help dyslexic learners?

Providing key words to dyslexic learners helps reduce the challenges they face with language processing, reading, and spelling. Each of these skills can help them as they plan and organise their writing. Using Wordbars in DocsPlus can help dyslexic learners because: 

• Key words can be read aloud – having access to key vocabulary is only useful if students can read them. 
  
  
• Once students have included the key vocabulary in their sentence, DocsPlus can read it back so they can check it has been used in the correct context.  

Teaching students effective planning and organising strategies can empower them to become more confident and successful writers. With the right tools and support, students can produce well-structured and coherent pieces of writing across the curriculum. 

This is just a few examples of how you might use DocsPlus to support students with planning in lessons! If you would like more information, you can: 

• Book a meeting with your Partnership Consultant.
  
  
• Explore our LearningGrids resource bank for writing resources for your learners.

We're often asked in Customer Care meetings for advice on the best ways to start using DocsPlus, so I recently led a webinar on this very topic!

In this session, we looked at the Quick Start Menu, Smart Tab resources, LearningGrids, and the Document.

I’ve summarised some of the key information we covered below.

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The Quick Start Menu

When you first open DocsPlus on a Windows or Mac PC, it will automatically open the Quick Start Menu. From here, you can:

• Choose New Document to start writing with DocsPlus’ support tools.
• Reopen a file you’ve recently had open in DocsPlus from the list on the left-hand side.
• Open the Browse tab to navigate the file explorer.
• Open the LearningGrids Resources tab to navigate the library of ready-made curriculum resources.

In the DocsPlus App, go to the folder icon in the top-left corner and then choose My Files to navigate your device’s file explorer or choose LearningGrids to access the library of ready-made curriculum resources.

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Smart Tab resources

Smart Tabs are how we collectively refer to the resources available in DocsPlus. They include:

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LearningGrids

While you can create your own Smart Tab resources, we have a collection of ready-made, ready-to-use Wordbars and WorkSpaces available for you to open from LearningGrids.

LearningGrids contains over 1,000 professionally created DocsPlus resources, with new resources added regularly. It’s always best to check what we have here first before you start creating your own!

Use the subject areas to see what’s available in different topic areas and start using any resource by clicking open.

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Document

The support tools available alongside the Document and Wordbars are fantastic for supporting students’ writing.

Students might start by creating an audio recording using Voice Notes to outline their plan.

They can then turn on the Predictor for writing fluency and spelling support. Once a sentence has been completed, DocsPlus will read it back, ensuring students are checking their work for sense and clarity.

You can view which tools a student has accessed during writing by visiting Analytics for a visual representation of their writing process.

To see these features in action, watch the recording from this webinar here.

Need some help with DocsPlus? Book a meeting with your Partnership Consultant to discuss the best ways to implement DocsPlus in your school.

We recently ran a webinar focusing on using Clicker to support children writing their own stories. I’ve gathered some of the ideas and resources we shared here.

Planning

We started off by looking at resources for planning stories. First, we looked at our Using Question Words Clicker Board and Talk Set. These resources can be used to help learners develop their question skills or build ideas for story writing.

We then looked at some resources for plotting different stages of a story with The Alien and Planet Earth Story Steps, Storyboard 5, and Pirate Story Builder Clicker Boards. These resources are great for encouraging children to get their creative writing ideas flowing individually, in groups or as a class.

Settings

We then moved on to looking at resources for developing settings for our stories. The Pirate story builder Clicker Board includes multiple story building elements, so after identifying key plot points in the Plot tab, we moved on to using the Setting tab to gather ideas for describing the setting of our story.

Thinking about a different style of story, we then looked at the Spooky House Talk Set. This resource includes a picture prompt with lots of detail and recording buttons to encourage learners to think about how they might describe this setting in a story. Alongside this resource we looked at the Spooky House Description Word Bank, which provides powerful vocabulary learners can use to help them describe this kind of setting in their writing.

Finally, we looked at the Setting the Scene – The House. This resource encourages children to explore different senses as part of a description, rather than relying predominantly on visual aspects of the description.

Character development

Next, we looked at character development ideas. For this, we returned to our pirate story ideas with the Pirate Wanted Poster Two Clicker Book. This Make-A-Book activity allows children to draw their own pirate character and then describe them in the style of a wanted poster. There is an in-built Word Bank in the resource to support learners building their descriptions.

We then moved on to designing superhero characters with the If I was a Superhero Clicker Board, which provides several prompts for, not only describing a superhero character, but also starting to develop their backstory.

Then, we looked at characters for a different style of story – fantasy – with the Fantasy Creatures Talk Set. Main characters aren’t the only characters that need to be developed in a story; this resource is a great way to give learners a starting point for describing fantasy creatures that might be involved in their stories.

Writing

Lastly, we looked at resources to support children through the writing process of their stories. The Fantasy Story Words and Fantasy Story A-Z Word Banks are excellent resources for supporting writers at the best stage for them. Fantasy Story A-Z provides a wider range of topic vocabulary organised alphabetically -  this is great for learners who know the words they want to use but struggle with spelling. Whereas Fantasy Story Words groups words by characters, places, nouns, verbs, and adjectives, offering more support to learners who might not be as confident with the vocabulary.

For learners that need support structuring their stories, we looked at the Write a Traditional Story Connect Set. This resource gives children a selection of sentence starters, characters, and events which they can use to build their own traditional style stories.

Want to find out more? Book a meeting with your Clicker Partnership Consultant to get some additional hints and tips.

We recently ran a webinar focusing on approaches you can take to introduce Clicker to pupils. I’ve gathered some of the ideas we shared here.

Before introducing Clicker to pupils

First, we discussed some things to consider before introducing Clicker to your pupils:

• Topic selection – introducing Clicker to learners with a topic they’re already familiar with can reduce cognitive load, allowing learners to focus on getting to grips with new features and applying vocabulary they have used recently.
  
  
• Clicker Sets selection – picking an appropriate Clicker Set for the child’s ability and the learning objectives can help to ensure success and build their confidence with the software. For example, this could be offering a Connect Set to a child who needs a scaffold to support their writing or a Clicker Board to provide visual support to a child struggling to organise their ideas.
  
  
• Concepts – Which features and concepts in Clicker do you want to introduce to learners first? Whether it’s strategies for using the speech support, Voice Notes or the Predictor, many of these features are available across our resources, making it easier for learners to move between resources confidently.
  
  
• Saving and sharing – what systems do you have in place for saving and sharing files in your school? Has Clicker been set up to make it as easy as possible to share files between devices?
  
  
• Training resources – To ensure introducing Clicker to learners goes as smoothly as possible, teachers and teaching assistants should be familiar with the features you’re planning to use. A bespoke training session or our free training resources can help staff feel confident to use Clicker in their classrooms.

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Clicker Books

Clicker Books can be a great starting point for introducing children to Clicker. They offer a simple way to introduce learners to the speech support available throughout Clicker, embedding this feature early in their experience with the software.

We have a fantastic selection of ready-to-use Clicker Books available in LearningGrids to suit a wide range of ages and needs. They can be easily edited to meet your learners’ specific requirements.

Clicker Books can also be used flexibly in the classroom. They could be used to introduce a topic, such as life cycles, to a whole class on the interactive whiteboard, giving the teacher an opportunity to model their use, or for supporting learners in researching a topic independently.

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Clicker Board

We also looked at Clicker Boards. Mind mapping is likely to be a concept that children are already familiar with, so using a Clicker Board to facilitate this can easily lead into using Clicker more widely.

Similarly to Clicker Books, Clicker Boards can be used with the whole class to support group discussions and gather ideas, giving teachers another opportunity to model key features.

Using a Clicker Board provides access to other support tools common throughout Clicker such as the speech support, Predictor, and Voice Notes. So, if these are features you’d like to encourage children to use, Clicker Board is a great place to start.

The range of Clicker Boards available through LearningGrids covers a wide range of activities from sequencing, to Venn diagrams, to story planning, making them easy to incorporate into your existing planning.

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Writing grids

The three types of writing grids; Sentence Sets, Connect Sets, and Word Banks, could also be a good option for introducing Clicker to your learners.

All three writing grid resources function similarly, so you can easily support multiple ability levels while reinforcing similar concepts. By introducing learners to using right-click or SoundShift to listen to vocabulary offered in the grid and then clicking to use that vocabulary in their writing, they’ll be able to start using any of the three writing grids independently.

Teachers can make use of these resources as starter or plenary activities displayed for the whole class to see and model their use at the same time.

Access to Analytics alongside the writing grids gives teachers clear data on how children are producing their writing and an insight into the impact Clicker has on children’s literacy.

Want to find out more? Book a meeting with your Clicker Partnership Consultant to get some additional hints and tips.

During a recent training session, staff were particularly interested to find out how you could use Clicker to support EAL pupils. I thought I’d share some of the ideas we discussed around using picture support within Clicker to develop links with new vocabulary.

You can set up picture support in Pictures under the Options ribbon. Here you can tick the boxes listed at the top to tell Clicker to display pictures in the Word Processor as words are typed into the Document, in the Spell Check when words are checked, or in the Predictor as pupils write.

You can also choose to have picture support in most of the different Clicker Sets. Some examples of this might be: easily editing a Connect Set so that different words or parts of sentences have a picture to accompany them, or Picturizing a Word Bank to include visual cues for the vocabulary.

It’s also possible to incorporate pictures into other elements of Clicker. Use a Clicker Board mind-map with key vocabulary and relevant pictures to reinforce topic understanding. Or introduce and consolidate vocabulary using a Matching Set with a combination of pictures, words and sounds. The images you use can either come from CrickPix2, our library of images, or your own pictures.

It is easy to add your own picture library to Clicker. For example, if you wanted to have a class discussion about a particular topic which you have found a lot of pictures for, you simply:

1. Go to Options
2. Choose Pictures
3. Then open the Picturize tab
4. Click the + icon in the bottom-right of the window
5. Locate your chosen picture folder, select it and click ‘Ok’.
6. You can now select and insert pictures like you would with the CrickPix library

By using the picture support options available in Clicker, you can provide context and make text more accessible for your EAL pupils. Find more ideas on how you can use Clicker to support pupils with EAL in our recent webinar ‘Supporting English language learners with Clicker’.

With any scheme or technology that you implement in school, you want to know it’s having a positive impact on learning and you’re getting value for money.

Here are some of the aspects of your pupils’ writing that Clicker can improve and how you can use the software to monitor and track their progress.

Vocabulary

By using appropriate writing grids and the Predictor, children can confidently use a wider range of topic specific and more advanced vocabulary in their writing.

In Analytics, you can track their use of vocabulary by seeing which words were typed, chosen from Clicker Sets or the Predictor. By delving further into Analytics, you can even see whether children listened to the words for confirmation before adding them into the Document.

Over time, children will need the speech support less frequently, include vocabulary that they first used with Clicker Sets and have the confidence to use this vocabulary in their writing outside of Clicker as well.

Length of writing

Clicker can have a dramatic effect on the amount of work children can produce and how quickly they can produce it.

With access to planning tools, such as Voice Notes (voice recordings) and Clicker Boards (mind maps), children can plan their writing in the way that suits them best and will find it easier to stay on track during writing tasks as they can refer back to their ideas (as opposed to having to remember them as they write). With point and click access to key vocabulary, your class can spend more time concentrating on their writing content and sentence structure, and less time focusing on spelling individual words, which can often interrupt their thought process and the flow of their writing. This should encourage your pupils to write longer sentences as their ideas won’t be forgotten, and barriers to writing longer sentences (like spelling) are removed.

To monitor Clicker’s positive impact, you can track the average length of their writing over time through Analytics. By choosing Statistics in the Analytics ribbon, you can see the total number of words in a Document, the average sentence length and the number of paragraphs. This makes it quick and easy for you to track the progress your pupils are making!

Spelling and grammar errors

Clicker can help learners check their work more effectively and correct mistakes more easily.

The speech feedback that reads out sentences when they’re completed helps learners to identify misspelled words, even if the misspelling is a different correct word (for example, writing ‘sow’ instead of ‘saw’). Learners can also use the speech feedback to be sure their sentence makes sense. Using speech feedback alongside the Predictor and the Spell Check helps learners to correct their work more independently. For learners who need further help with aspects of grammar, we have a wide selection of Clicker Sets focusing on different grammar rules and homophones.

In Analytics, you can easily see where the Predictor and Spell Check were used in a Document. By selecting the tabs, you can see whether the child listened to the options provided before making a choice or correction.

Independence

Clicker supports learners in writing and correcting more independently, reducing the amount of help they require from an adult.

Pupils can use LearningGrids resources to research or refer to curriculum content independently. A recent Clicker success story included a lovely example of this:

“In ‘Choosing Time’ the pupils can decide what they’d like to do, and this one child really wanted to use Clicker to write about plants. This isn’t something we’ve covered in class, but she just went off to LearningGrids and found some writing sets on the subject and presented me with this whole page of writing about the different parts of a plant, how to look after them etc, it was amazing. They can just pick Clicker up and roll with it.”

Rather than needing to check the correct option in the Spell Check with an adult, learners can listen to the options provided with the speech feedback. They can also record their tasks or ideas into Voice Notes in the Document to refer to when they need a reminder of the task they’re completing. Pupils can structure their work before starting to write with Voice Notes or a Clicker Board, and using a Word Bank ensures learners always have point and click access to key subject vocabulary.

As Clicker boosts the class’s independence when writing, teachers will find that they can spend more time with each pupil as those who usually rely on teacher help to complete a task will require less adult support. 

Alternate methods of recording

Finally, for learners who struggle to record their knowledge in writing, Clicker offers multiple options for alternate methods of recording.

Children can use Voice Notes to record their understanding orally before attempting to write it up. They could use the video recording function in Clicker Books to record their explanations as a movie book. Or they could use a Talk Set with pictures as a stimulus to express their knowledge.

By using Clicker’s alternative methods to record pupils’ understanding, teachers are able to track the learning progress of the children who struggle to demonstrate this in their writing. Talk Sets and recording functions also enable teachers to easily capture the voice of the child for speaking and listening evidence.

If you’d like to discuss using Clicker in your school in more detail, you can book a meeting with your Partnership Consultant. Otherwise, for further information you can always visit our:

• Clicker Basics training
• Clicker tutorials
• Clicker success stories
• Training webinars

We’re excited to announce that our new training resources – DocsPlus for Students – are now live on our website!

These resources are a fantastic way for students to quickly learn about the different resources available to them in DocsPlus and how they work.

For each DocsPlus feature, we provide a brief description and short video. The video clearly covers how to use the chosen feature, making it perfect to quickly check whenever needed.

Students can quickly navigate to the features that interest them using the menu to the right of the screen. Features are organised by concept, so you can find the perfect resource in no time.

This is a fantastic first step for staff to getting to grips with DocsPlus too. DocsPlus for Students can be used alongside our other training resources such as the Getting Started tutorial, or the introductory pre-recorded webinar. As staff become more comfortable with DocsPlus, they could use the other tutorials available to learn how to create their own DocsPlus resources or access more of DocsPlus’ brilliant tools and resources.

DocsPlus for Students can be found in Training Resources linked at the top of the page. If you’d like to discuss a more detailed training plan for your staff, please book a Customer Care meeting with one of our consultants.

We’re excited to announce that our new training resources – Clicker Basics – are now live on our website!

These resources are a fantastic way for staff who are unfamiliar with Clicker to quickly learn about the different resources available and how they work on different devices.

For each feature, we provide a brief description and short video. The video clearly covers how to use the chosen feature with no voice over, making it perfect to quickly check whenever needed.

Quickly jump to the features that interest you using the menu to the right of the screen. Features are organised by concept, so you can find the perfect resource in no time.

This is a fantastic first step to getting to grips with Clicker. Clicker Basics can be used alongside our other training resources such as the Getting Started tutorial, or the introductory pre-recorded webinar. As staff become more comfortable with Clicker, they could use the other tutorials available to learn how to create their own Clicker Sets or access more of Clicker’s brilliant tools and resources.

Clicker Basics can be found in Training Resources linked at the top of the page. If you’d like to discuss a more detailed training plan for your staff, please book a Customer Care meeting with one of our consultants.

Customer care meetings are a fantastic opportunity for Clicker and DocsPlus users to get expert advice during their subscription period. They are short consultations (just 15 minutes) where we can answer any questions you have and share useful training materials, free resources and top tips to help you get the most out of the software.

You can book a free customer care meeting whenever you need one via the Training area of our website.

All our customers are invited to book a customer care meeting in the first month of their subscription to discuss implementation. In a recent example, a school had purchased the previous month and their IT team had just finished getting Clicker set up. They’d had a free demonstration with one of our consultants when they first started looking into Clicker, but they couldn’t remember how to make use of some of the key features. In our customer care meeting, we revisited Clicker’s core support tools, and I pointed them to all the great training resources we have on our website to refer to during their subscription. We also discussed strategies for embedding Clicker use throughout the school. To book a ‘Getting Started’ customer care meeting for your school, click here.

We also encourage you to book a customer care meeting after each year of your subscription. This is a great chance to talk about any changes to your needs or priorities that Clicker could help with.  I met with a school this week who were entering the second year of their Clicker subscription. They were really pleased with how they had been using it to support one of their learners but wanted to offer her more challenge this year to develop her writing further. We discussed the Clicker Sets they had been using so far and looked at some examples of activities they could try moving her on to. You can book a ‘Yearly Check-in’ customer care meeting for your school here.

Sometimes customers book a meeting because they have a ‘how do I…?’ question or a new focus they’d like to explore. A school I spoke to last week had recently invested in Chromebooks for their students. They knew they had access to the DocsPlus app and were excited to use it but realised they weren’t sure how to share work between teacher laptops and student Chromebooks. We arranged a meeting to discuss cloud storage and how this could be set up so that the saving and sharing process was as seamless as possible. To book a ‘How Do I…?’ customer care meeting for your school, click here.

We’re so pleased to be able to offer this level of individualised support throughout your subscription. This service is available to all of our customers, for both Clicker and DocsPlus. So just remember, if you ever need any help or advice, our consultants are always on hand to assist you – simply open our customer care meeting calendar and book whichever date and time works best for you.

I had a Customer Care meeting recently with a school who wanted to expand their use of Clicker across the curriculum. I showed them that we have lots of resources for cross-curriculum literacy on LearningGrids. Many of these can be found in the English subject area of LearningGrids.

In the Writing Frames & Planners category, we have a selection of Word Banks to support writing in different styles. There are frames for writing explanations, instructions, letters and more. Each Word Bank includes a selection of sentence starters, key phrases, and useful vocabulary relevant to the style of writing. These can be used across subject areas, such as writing instructions for a science experiment, persuading someone to try a Victorian pastime, or a recount of the events of the Great Fire of London.

Alongside these Word Banks, there are also Clicker Boards to support planning for a range of pieces of writing. These Boards give clear structures for learners to add their ideas. Send them to the document as a diagram for learners to easily reference while they’re writing. You can also find a KWL Chart Clicker Board here to keep track of what learners already know, want to know, and have learnt in different topic areas.

To support learners in using high-frequency words successfully, we have Word List One and Word List Two. Word List One offers vocabulary from the Dolch high frequency word list. Word List Two expands on this, offering vocabulary children are likely to encounter as they become more confident readers.

Alongside Word List One and Two, we have banks of vocabulary for other high-frequency word groups such as colours, numbers, and days of the week. These are great for supporting learners with general writing tasks.

These resources can be printed off as well, allowing you to provide differing levels of support to learners in your classroom with the same resource. Learners using Clicker on a PC, iPad or Chromebook benefit from the speech feedback and other support tools in the Document, while learners using a paper copy can fill in the boxes of a Clicker Board by hand or refer to the vocabulary offered by a printed Word Bank or writing frame.

You can book a Customer Care Meeting to discuss new ways you can use Clicker or any questions on getting the most out of your subscription with one of our consultants at a time that suits you!

Recently, in preparation for a training session, I was talking to a school that was hoping to use Clicker to support their learners with developmental co-ordination disorder. I’ve collated the tools and resources that we discussed using in Clicker with some suggestions for how they might be used.

Voice Notes

Voice Notes are a brilliant tool for many learners and are available in both the Document and Clicker Boards. You can use these by recording in the tasks that need to be completed (or breaking a bigger task into smaller chunks). Learners can then listen to the recordings as often as they need to, allowing them to independently check the tasks they need to do. This can really help children struggling with working memory or sequencing of tasks.

Alternatively, pupils can use Voice Notes to make their own recordings. This could consist of sentences they want to write out, an outline of the content they want to include, or key words and phrases they don’t want to forget. By recording this information into a Voice Note before starting writing, the learner can focus on the process of writing, knowing that the content is accessible to them whenever they need it. This is a great way to support a child struggling with working memory and can develop speaking and listening skills at the same time.

Writing grids

The writing grids are a fantastic, differentiated tool for providing point-and-click access to vocabulary on a range of different curriculum areas. You can easily adapt the appearance of the writing grids to avoid overwhelming pupils. Each of these can support learners with dyspraxia in different ways.

Sentence Sets

Sentence Sets are great for early writers and support the application of new topic vocabulary. They’re very useful for reinforcing the learning of correct word order within sentences too. This is particularly evident in the At Home – Colourful Semantics Sentence Set. All word order options available in Edit View help to improve children’s sequencing skills. Each grid in a Sentence Set builds on the last, removing the pressure of organising and structuring a piece of writing.

Connect Sets

Connect Sets support developing writers to produce more cohesive pieces of writing. By offering vocabulary and phrases, learners can produce writing on a range of topics. The clusters help reduce the cognitive load on the learner by offering both key vocabulary and structure. Connect Sets on topics such as the Great Fire of London, The First Flight and The Moon Landing help learners consolidate their understanding of a series of events.

Word Banks

Word Banks provide key words and phrases for more independent writers. These can be useful for supporting learners with dyspraxia when producing extended pieces of writing. A quick words Word Bank Weather and Climate – Quick Words provides key topic vocabulary in one grid, making it easy for the pupil to access. A topic-based Word Bank such as Medieval Knights supports the organisation of the vocabulary in a piece of writing and the sentence structure. An alphabetical Word Bank such as Keeping Healthy A-Z offers a greater range of vocabulary, allowing the learner to fully demonstrate their knowledge on the topic.

Clicker Boards

Clicker Boards are a fantastic tool for supporting learners with DCD on a range of levels. By creating a spider diagram on a topic, like this Landslide Mind Map, learners can organise their ideas and move elements as necessary.

You can then turn a Clicker Board into a Word Bank making the vocabulary more accessible when writing.

Our sequencing Clicker Boards are great for developing understanding of different sequences. This could be sequences learners encounter on a daily basis, such as Getting Ready - Sequencing or you could adapt one to show what learners will be doing that day. They can be used for learning about a series of events for a history project or other topic area such as growing plants.

The story planning resources can be used to support sequencing too. They can be used to plan a story or other piece of writing or can be adapted to work as a ‘to do’ list or visual timetable.

Talk Sets

Talk Sets support learners developing their oral communication skills. The images provide a stimulus and audio recordings can be created by the pupil explaining what they know on the topic.

Talk Sets are great for retrieval practice, as the stimulus helps to trigger memory. This Talk About the Water Cycle Talk Set offers a diagram of the water cycle as a prompt. The diagram has been labelled with the key vocabulary, providing more retrieval support. There are four recording buttons in this resource, allowing for a recording per stage of the cycle.

This Talk About Water Conservation resource provides six images of different ways we can save water, providing clear prompts for the topic. Each image can then be clicked to reveal the recording page where the learner can explain the method for saving water. Up to six recording buttons can be added for each image in Edit View.

To develop listening skills, the teacher or TA could make recordings in Talk Sets to accompany the images. Learners can then listen to the explanations as part of a flipped learning homework task or in preparation for a more detailed research task.

Talk Sets can also be used to develop sequencing skills. Tell the Story Talk Sets such as The First Flight Talk Set and Tell the Story resources show a series of images displaying a series of events or stages of a process in order. Learners can then make recordings explaining each stage of the process. Once recordings have been completed for each stage, all of them can be played together from the starting page with all the images displayed.

These examples are for a specific topic, but there are many resources that can be applied to different subjects with Clicker.

If you have a particular topic or lesson idea that you would like some help with, you can contact me via phone at 01604 671691 or email at training@cricksoft.com.

Welcome to a new school year! Getting back into routines after the school holidays can be a challenge, so here are some easy ideas for building relationships with new pupils and making a positive start to the term.

Classroom Routines

It’s important to establish new routines quickly and clearly at the start of the new year.

You can use Clicker to help introduce and maintain routines in the classroom. Using the ‘Our Classroom Rules’ Connect Set, you can discuss and agree a series of rules with your new class or remind pupils you’ve taught previously of your expectations. These can be reviewed and adjusted, if necessary, regularly throughout the year.

For positive classroom routines in more specific scenarios, the ‘Good Listeners’ and ‘Good Partners’ Clicker Boards encourage children to reflect on what they think makes a good listener or partner and apply those behaviours in classroom activities. This could be a working document and added to regularly over the first few weeks. Once they’ve been completed, they can be printed off and stuck on the wall or in children’s books for an easily accessible reminder.

For classes that struggle with certain routines, whether it’s transitioning between lessons, packing up at the end of the day, or managing homework, you could use a sequencing Clicker Board. There are several of these resources pre-made in LearningGrids which can easily be adapted for different routines by changing the images. This could be particularly helpful for pupils that struggle to sequence and organise tasks. You could get your class involved and help to consolidate the routine by asking them to demonstrate the stage in the process for a photo to add to the sequence. One or more children can then record an explanation of the process into Voice Notes.

Managing change

To help make transitions as smooth and calm as possible you could introduce yourself to pupils and parents with a Clicker Book – this could even include a short video! Each page could include some information about you and what you’ll be doing in the first few weeks. Children with Clicker at home can then open this on their home computer to reinforce who you are and what is going to be happening in the first few weeks.

A similar effect can be achieved without the video, using a Talk Set. You can add photos and other images to the Talk Set and make recordings introducing yourself and what they can expect.

Help children new to the school find their bearings with different resources. For younger learners a Matching Set combining photos from around the school with the sound target can help them to learn new locations. You can edit the ‘School’ Connect Set to include photos from your school for them to put together into a piece of writing helping children to become familiar with different locations in school. This can serve as a great reminder of locations they may have seen on transition visits.

To help children feel part of the classroom community, they need to explore and become familiar with the routines. With younger children, you can read the ‘A Day at School – Read a Book’ and encourage your class to discuss how their day is similar or different. Children can make their own book about school by adding pictures to illustrate a range of features particular to their own school using 'My School – Make a Book'.

For children who struggle with change, we could use the ‘When I Feel Worried’ resources to think about what they can do to help themselves feel better.

Building relationships

Starting to get to know your pupils is an important part of those first days and weeks of a new year. To help children get started and avoid the fear of the blank page, try out these resources.

The ‘This Is Me’ Clicker Board prompts children for some basic information about themselves. They can add a photo or draw a picture of themselves using the paint tool to complete the mind map. Turn this into an ice breaker activity by changing the title to ‘Interview me’. You can then pair children up and ask them to fill in the other child’s information. Help the class get to know each other by then displaying their mind maps on the board before a picture’s been added and ask children to guess who in the class it’s describing.

The ‘My Favourite Things’ and ‘My Spare Time’ Connect Sets help children to write about the things that interest them. They can choose from the options provided in each grid. Alternatively, they can use the structure to support their writing and add in details more specific to themselves. The information gained from ‘My Spare Time’ in particular can be invaluable in identifying children who might need more literacy support, children who might get on well together or children who might need more support making friends.

There are also resources to help children to communicate their hopes and personal goals for the year ahead. The ‘My Goals’ Connect Set offers starters, middles and endings to create sentences about what they need to work on or improve at school. The ‘Personal Goals’ Word Bank supports children to consider and write their own targets.

Introducing new topics

No matter what topic you’re starting with this term, be sure to check LearningGrids for pre-made resources ready for you to use.

There are resources to support learning History, Geography, Maths and Science as well as collections on topics such as Pirates, the Olympics, and Colours. Support different styles of writing and develop children’s writing skills using resources found in the English resource family.

Clicker Boards are perfect for checking what children already know about a topic. You can create one on any topic instantly using the spider diagram template, or the K-W-L Chart helps you to assess what children already know on the topic and what they’d like to learn.

Clicker Books are fantastic for introducing new information, with the integrated speech support learners can research a new topic independently or in groups, or they can be projected to allow discussion on new vocabulary.

Guide learners in writing using new vocabulary with the writing grids, easily differentiated to suit different needs and ability levels.

Matching Sets ensure success and can be used as retrieval practice for previously learnt vocabulary or for a flipped learning introductory task.

These examples are for a specific topic, but there are many resources that can be applied to different subjects with Clicker.

If you have a particular topic or lesson idea that you would like some help with, you can contact me via phone at 01604 671691 or email at info@cricksoft.com.

Many schools that support their learners with visuals ask us how they can be incorporated in Clicker. Children with a range of needs can benefit from using visuals. Here are some of the different ways you can use visuals in Clicker.

In the Document

Visuals can be used within Clicker Documents in different ways. Children can insert images into the document to illustrate their writing, helping to increase engagement with the task and supporting retention. Images can be added from a range of sources. Children can choose from the pictures in CrickPix2 library, or an image saved on the PC. They can also take a photo with the webcam or draw pictures using the Paint tool.

Turn on instant pictures to provide immediate picture support while writing. You can choose to add images to the Document while children write, to the Spell Check alongside potential corrections and to the Predictor to increase understanding and writing fluency.

The Paint tool offers further opportunities for creativity, helping children to express their ideas visually. Build pictures using images, letters, shapes and brush tools.

Use Picturize in the Document to illustrate a piece of writing quickly. This could be used to illustrate children’s work or to support reading comprehension. Clicker will use the selected picture library to automatically search for and add in images related to the text.

In the writing grids

You can also add pictures to any of the writing grids. This is great for providing additional information to support children with their writing.

In Edit View, you can add images to individual cells in any of the writing grids one-by-one (alternatively, use Picturize to add relevant images quickly). In Sentence Sets, you can also add a sentence picture to support comprehension. Children can also use the sentence picture to illustrate their sentences in the Document.

Many of the pre-made writing grids from LearningGrids already have visuals, such as the ‘Plan a route’ Connect Set, ‘My Meals’ Connect Set, ‘At the Park’ Word Bank and ‘Washing Hands’ Sentence Set.

Supporting routines

Use visuals in Clicker to help children learn and remember routines, both in school and at home.

You can create visual timetables using a Clicker Board. These can be created from scratch, or you could adapt one of our storyboard resources from LearningGrids. To support children completing a short series of tasks, you could create a visual to do list with the ‘Before and After’ resources to show three tasks in sequence.

You could use photos to introduce learners to new members of staff or other children in their class using a Matching Set, matching ‘Picture’ to ‘Word’ or ‘Picture and Word’. Another way staff can introduce themselves is by recording interesting facts about themselves alongside their photo with their name in a Talk Set. This could be particularly beneficial for children anxious about changing class or joining the school for example.

By adding a Picture box to a Clicker Book you can record short videos. This can be used to film short introductory videos for new classes, with additional pages covering further relevant information. They could also be used to demonstrate a practical task or experiment.

Our sequencing Clicker Boards are great for supporting children learning different processes. These resources encompass a range of sequences such as making a cup of tea, getting ready for school or growing a pumpkin from a seed.

Other activities

Visuals can be integrated with any Clicker Set. These can be used as a stimulus, to aid retrieval or comprehension.

Talk Sets provide images as a prompt and a record button for children to record what they know based on the stimulus. There are three types of Talk Set. ‘Listen and Say’ Talk Sets help build children’s vocabulary through use of images, text and speech support. Children can click the picture to hear the related vocabulary read out and then record themselves repeating it. ‘Talk About’ Talk Sets provide images as a stimulus to help children to retrieve information on a topic and allow an alternate method of recording what they know with record buttons. ‘Tell the story’ Talk Sets are a great way of using visuals to show a series of events and provide a record button so children can record their explanations orally.

All of our Read A Book and Read it Yourself Clicker Books in LearningGrids have an image added to each page to aid comprehension. When creating your own Clicker Books, you can add picture boxes for your own images or even record short videos using your webcam.

Matching Sets are a brilliant way of introducing new vocabulary with images to build understanding. They can also provide retrieval practice with images as a reminder for vocabulary previously covered in earlier topic areas. This makes a fantastic regular starter or plenary activity.

If you use Widgit, SymbolStix or PCS symbols at your school, these can also be used alongside Clicker. Symbols can be used in Clicker in the same way as any other image.

Using symbols regularly can help develop children’s vocabulary, aid reading comprehension and provide consistent and familiar support.

Symbol sets provide images for both key vocabulary and high frequency words. When using Picturize or instant pictures, you can decide whether you want to provide picture support for high-frequency words as well as key vocabulary with a checkbox.

If you have a particular topic idea or need to support that you would like some help with, you can contact us via phone at 01604 671691 or email at info@cricksoft.com.

Recently, a customer contacted me asking about Clicker resources that they could use with children studying Shakespeare. We have lots of resources on the topic of Macbeth and it’s easy to create even more, so I thought I’d share some ideas in this blog post.

Plot

After finishing the play, you can use Clicker to examine the plot in more detail. With the Macbeth Storyboard, you can summarise the events in each act of the play. This Clicker Board includes Voice Notes for audio recordings, providing more detail or analysis on the plot. They could also be used for children to record their initial ideas before putting them in writing.

Alternatively, you could create a ‘Tell the Story’ Talk Set with images from different key events in the play. These images could be screenshots from a modern film adaptation, photos from a theatre production. Alternatively, you could get children involved in the creation of the activity by asking them to freeze frame key parts and take a photo for the activity.

Clicker Books can also be used in different ways. You could re-write the story of Macbeth into a Clicker Book and with the Record & Play button, children can record their character or text analysis. Alternatively, by adding a Picture Bank and Word Bank, children can create their own retellings of the story.

Characters

When examining the characters in Macbeth, a good starting point is the Characters in Macbeth – Mind Maps set. This resource includes a mind map for five of the main characters in Macbeth, with each including space to add an image relating to the character. For example, you could add a photo from a modern adaptation or children could draw their own images using the Paint tool – this could be their own interpretation of how the character would look or a symbol to represent their role in the play. They can then gather key vocabulary relating to that character. This could be used throughout the topic, starting at the beginning to see what children already know of the play and adding to it throughout. In this way, learners can see how the different characters progress throughout the course of the play.

You could create a ‘Talk About’ Talk Set for a hot seating activity. Add images representing the different characters and increase the number of recordings per image depending on the number of questions you want to ask. This makes a great plenary activity during this topic and could inform other tasks, such as writing a diary entry at a later point.

You could create a Matching Set to help consolidate learners’ understanding of the role of different characters in the play. Using either images of the characters from plays or film adaptations or the characters’ names typed into the Clicker Set, you could match these to descriptions of the characters. This makes a great plenary activity or preparation for an extended piece of writing examining the different character’s roles.

Retell the story

Support children when retelling the story with the writing grids. The Macbeth Sentence Set provides lots of support for younger learners to be able to demonstrate their understanding of the plot. Older learners can use a Sentence Set as a starter activity to recap the key plot points, and you could edit this resource to remove the model sentence for an additional level of challenge.

The Macbeth Connect Set provides scaffolded writing support for retelling the plot. It’s a great way of assessing children’s understanding of the sequence of events throughout the play and helps learners to develop their use of new topic vocabulary.

There are also three ready-made Macbeth Word Banks you can use depending on the task and support you want to offer. The Quick Words Word Bank provides one grid with key vocabulary for writing about Macbeth. It’s quick and easy to access the necessary vocabulary for a whole range of related tasks. The A-Z Word Bank provides a wide range of vocabulary that is ideal for supporting an extended writing task. The final Macbeth Word Bank offers grids covering plot, setting and characters making it easy for children to find the vocabulary they need when writing about different aspects of the play.

Other activities

Cloze Documents are a great way of assessing children’s understanding of the events in Macbeth. This could be quickly created using a copied and pasted summary of the play and the express remove tool. Alternatively, you could remove key words to check for common misunderstandings.

Cloze Documents are really useful for supporting learners with ‘What a Good One Looks Like’ when preparing for a piece of writing. This could apply to a character or plot analysis or something more creative, for example, a diary entry from the perspective of one of the characters.

They can even be used to support children’s own attempts at creative writing. By outlining the story but removing key names and actions, children can fill in the gaps with their own ideas.

The writing frames from LearningGrids can be useful for supporting children writing an analysis of the play. You could adapt the Book Review Frame to write a review of the play, and the Persuasion Frame could be used to argue where blame lies throughout the events of the play. For a creative writing task, one of the letter writing frames could be used to summarise the events of the play to someone who needs to be informed. The Writing Instructions frame or Procedure Frame could be used to support children writing their own potion recipes and practising use of the imperative and instructional writing.

Finally, you can support children writing a diary entry from the perspective of one of the characters using a Clicker Book. You can provide Word Banks to support this, and you could refer back to previous activities, such as hot seating and ideas gathered in the Characters in Macbeth – Mind Maps. You can also use the video function to make this a video diary with the use of a webcam.

These examples are for a specific topic, but there are many resources that can be applied to different subjects with Clicker .

If you have a particular topic or lesson idea that you would like some help with, you can contact me via phone at 01604 671691 or email at gemma.dean@cricksoft.com. 

Recently, while researching in preparation for webinars and training sessions, I came across an article on the benefits of using different senses to aid vocabulary development. This can be beneficial for younger learners and children with EAL. While reading the article I was inspired by all the ways Clicker could be used to support this and thought I would share some ideas.

Introducing body parts

Firstly, for children to be able to talk about senses successfully, they will need to know how body parts and senses are linked. To introduce the topic to younger learners, you could use one of our ‘Body Parts – Picture Pairs’ resources. These are available for the whole body or just parts of the head. These resources focus on encouraging the child to match two pictures and are great for building confidence. To start making the connection with the vocabulary you could then edit the Matching Set’s Target and Choice options so that you’re matching a picture of the body part to a ‘Picture and Word’ or ‘Sound’ so that the name of the body part is read out instead. You could even change the sound to a clue, for example “I use these to see” spoken by Clicker, to match to an image of eyes. For older learners you could use the ‘Human Body’ Find Out and Write About resources which go into more detail on the purpose of different body parts, inside and outside.

To start building the connection for younger pupils, you could then move on to the ‘Parts of the Body’ or the ‘Body Parts and Senses’ Connect Sets.

Sight

Now that we’ve introduced body parts and their link to senses, we can explore vocabulary related to each sense in more detail.

To expand children’s use of adjectives to better describe what they can see, you could introduce them to one of the three ‘Add the Adjective’ Connect Sets. These Connect Sets offer short sentences on places, characters or objects with a selection of adjectives to choose from. This is a great way to expand children’s vocabulary for describing the things they can see in the accompanying images.

We could even potentially link this to the Scientific Observations Clicker Board where we make sure that we’re accurately recording what we can see when doing scientific experiments for cross-curriculum learning.

Taste

When moving on to taste, you could expand children’s vocabulary with more options; for example, we can use the ‘Food Likes and Dislikes’ Connect Set to encourage children to think about whether the foods they eat are good for keeping them healthy.

We could help children to develop their writing about taste further by asking them to review the food offered by the school cafeteria or a local café that they like. I’ve created this writing frame to support children completing this task.

Smell

When learning about smell we could create a Clicker Board like the example I’ve included below to gather examples from the class about things they can and can’t smell, or good and bad smells.

We could then build on this by giving an opinion on different smells and giving reasons for our opinions. We might then want to link this to previous senses that we’ve looked at by creating compound sentences with a Connect Set.

Touch

For touch, you could look at the resources available on Materials & Properties and how these properties make them suitable for certain objects. The ‘Good Materials for Toys’ Clicker Book takes several common toys and looks at why the material they’re made from is good for their purpose. This could be expanded by bringing examples of these toys into the classroom for children to explore and add their own impressions of the materials to the book in text or audio, using Record & Play buttons.

The ‘Materials and Properties’ Connect Set expands on this idea by taking common items and guiding children in explaining what they’re made from and why it’s a good choice. The options provided can easily be edited to better suit children’s vocabulary.

Sound

When exploring sounds, it’s a great opportunity for cross-curriculum learning with music. We could think about the different ways you can describe music; this vocabulary can then be gathered in a Clicker Board.

Building on the theme of music, we could explore different instruments and the sounds they make with the resources in the Sounds & Music collection. The ‘Responding to Music’ Custom Set is particularly good for encouraging children to think about how music makes them feel.

We could also link what we know about sound to science lessons by using the Changing Pitch of Sound resources to explore how we can affect sound in different ways.

We might also want to link this to English lessons, particularly focusing on phonics and the sounds different graphemes make. There are lots of resources in Sounds & Letters on helping children to identify groups of words that share similar vowel sounds and building the phonological awareness with the Rhyming and Alliteration resources.

All senses

You could introduce each sense with one of the ‘I Can…’ Connect Sets. There is one of these for each sense introducing the construction ‘I can’ and ‘I can’t’ alongside the different senses for various items they might encounter daily. There are images throughout the resources to support children accessing new vocabulary.

These can easily be edited in Edit View or by shift + clicking the cell you want to change to better accommodate children’s vocabulary for things they might encounter in their classroom. We could also adapt these resources to introduce new vocabulary such as adjectives, conjunctions, or figurative language to help describe with our senses.

Once we’ve built vocabulary around each of the senses individually, we could then move on to talking about the senses together.

We could use the Setting the Scene Connect Sets to encourage children to use all of their senses when using descriptive language. This can be expanded with the Senses Words Word Bank which has lots of vocabulary that can be used to extend writing about the different senses. Some children could then move on to setting their own scenes using their new vocabulary using the Setting the Scene Planner Clicker Board.

These examples are for a specific topic, but there are many resources that can be applied to different subjects with Clicker.

If you have a particular topic or lesson idea that you would like some help with, you can contact me via phone at 01604 671691 or email at gemma.dean@cricksoft.com.

Recently when preparing a training session with a school, they passed me some resources that I could use as the basis for accompanying Clicker activities, which I thought I’d share.

One of the topics they were preparing to study was dinosaurs, which I’ll be using as the focus for this blog post. As part of this topic, they were learning dinosaur names, finding out about Mary Anning and fossil formation, creating fact files and writing dinosaur stories. These are the activities we’ll be looking at supporting.

Learning dinosaur names

To start with, you might want to assess what your class already knows. You could do this by collecting dinosaur names in a Clicker Board as a class. You could start with the spider diagram template and fill in the empty cells as you discuss dinosaurs with your class. Alternatively, you could help prompt children’s memories by adding pictures of different dinosaurs to the empty cells beforehand and seeing which dinosaurs they can name. This is easy to do using the CrickPix2 library of images, which contains lots of dinosaur pictures. By creating a Clicker Board early on in this topic you can add to it throughout, and when supporting children’s writing it can be turned into a Word Bank to help with challenging vocabulary.

To help consolidate new topic vocabulary, you could create a Matching Set. Using the CrickPix2 picture library again to populate the Clicker Set, you could set the target as the name of the dinosaur to match to the correct image. For extra support you could have the pictures labelled. Alternatively, you could have a speaker button which reads out the name of the dinosaur or describes some of its characteristics.

Mary Anning and fossil formation

We have a selection of resources in LearningGrids to help teach children how fossils are formed. This Clicker Book – From Fish to Fossil – explains the whole process with clear pictures to aid understanding, using the fossilisation of a fish as an example. The Fossils Clicker Book gives a more general introduction to the topic. There’s a Connect Set and Word Banks to provide key vocabulary and structured support to help children explain this process in writing for themselves.

You could use the images from these resources to create a sequencing activity in a Clicker Board. Children could then organise the images into the correct order and record themselves explaining the process. You could also use this Tell the Story Talk Set in a similar manner for children to describe the process in more detail, with the pictures for support.

To teach children about Mary Anning, you could create a Clicker Book about her for them to read, or adapt the Rosa Parks Fact File with information on Mary instead. To assess comprehension later, you could use a Cloze Document with information on her life for learners to complete. I created this one using information found online which I then simplified.

Creating dinosaur fact files

You could adapt the Rosa Parks Fact File from LearningGrids (as mentioned above) to create a fact file on different dinosaurs. You could change the categories to look at their habitat, the period of time in which they lived, size and diet. Children can easily edit the information in each section by ‘shift + clicking’ the cell they want to change.

Alternatively, to provide more support for children while they’re creating their fact files, you could create a Make-a-book Clicker Book with Word Banks containing key vocabulary and Picture Banks so children can easily illustrate their book. You could also add a Record & Play button so children can record themselves talking about the different dinosaurs, which can make a potentially challenging written task more inclusive. You can even add video of children explaining what they know, perhaps while hot-seating as a dinosaur professor.

You could also offer children the option to create their fact files in a Clicker Board to visually display what they’ve learnt about different dinosaurs. This allows children to display their knowledge in the order that makes most sense to them.

Writing dinosaur stories

For this creative activity, you can provide support and structure using some of our creative writing resources from LearningGrids. For children who need more support, you could edit the Magic North Pole Adventure Connect Set to focus on a magic time travel adventure instead. This provides lots of structural support in the writing process while giving children choices so they can make the story their own.

You could use a Settings Word Bank to solidify the environment children’s stories are set in and help them to use dynamic vocabulary. If you’ve been building vocabulary in a Clicker Board throughout the topic, this can now be turned into a Word Bank to provide key topic vocabulary.

Use one of our Storyboards to help children plan their story, or this Story Steps resource which is a fun way of encouraging children to think creatively about how they can create a series of events to link the two images.

These examples are for a specific topic, but you can easily apply the same methods to any subject with Clicker 8.

If you have a particular topic or lesson idea that you would like some help with, you can contact me via phone at 01604 671691 or email at gemma.dean@cricksoft.com. 

Recently a teacher contacted us asking if we had any suggestions for supporting children working on a project on space. I thought this was a really great activity and I enjoyed putting together resources on the topic. Here are some ideas that might be helpful for others.

I’ve selected a range of activities for preparing children with ideas for their writing, followed by options for supporting them during the writing process.

Matching Sets – match the planets

You can reinforce new knowledge on the properties of the different planets and the sun with a Matching Set. In this example I’ve used images from the CrickPix2 library and made sure to display the name of the planet alongside its image. The target is set to ‘Sound’ and when clicked, the speaker button will give information such as “This planet is nearest the sun. It was named after the Roman messenger god.” You can adjust the difficulty of this task easily by increasing or decreasing the number of options offered for each clue and adapting the clues.

Custom Set – describe the planets

To help children develop their retrieval of the new information they’ve learnt about space, this task requires children to select appropriate vocabulary for describing different astrological bodies. To create this activity, I took one of our describe the characters Custom Sets from LearningGrids and changed the pictures and vocabulary offered. You could make this task more challenging by not providing vocabulary for children to choose from. They could then enter their own words by holding shift on the keyboard and clicking a cell to add the word. You could also make it a whole class activity, gathering ideas from the class and adding them to the resource.

Talk Set – The Solar System

This resource from LearningGrids encourages children to orally explain what they know about different bodies in our solar system. This could be used as part of a group task where each child in a group contributes a fact using one of the three recording icons available per image. Alternatively, children could work on this independently, adding three different facts into each icon.

Clicker Cloze

Clicker Cloze activities are a great way of preparing children before a longer piece of writing. This activity provides a model text with key vocabulary removed, so children are exposed to the style of writing you expect them to produce and practise retrieval of new vocabulary. This example is created by taking some text from the internet and adapting it. You could also use a digital textbook or text from a worksheet so long as it can be copied and pasted.

Clicker Board and Word Banks

You could use a Clicker Board in the planning stages of the project to help children plan and organise the information they want to include in their project. You might prepare for the project as a class first and gather ideas and vocabulary together in this way. Once you have gathered the vocabulary and phrases that will be useful for writing on the topic, you can turn the Clicker Board into a Word Bank. All of the images and any colours used in the Clicker Board will be preserved in the Word Bank to aid retrieval and organisation. Children could then write up their project in the word processor using the support tools available there. It could then be transferred into a Clicker Book as a completed piece of writing with audio or video recordings alongside it.

Find Out and Write About Space

Our Find Out and Write About resources help children develop independent research skills. There are pages of information within the resource with a built-in talking glossary for key vocabulary. Children are also provided with writing support throughout. On any page children can click the ‘Write’ icon and access the word processor to write up what they’ve learnt with the support of a writing grid. I edited one of our Find Out and Write About resources on the topic of tropical rainforests so that all the information and writing support are on the topic of space.

Clicker Books

You could also provide a Clicker Book to support children with their project. You could create one with lots of information to use while researching the topic. Alternatively, you could create a ‘Make-A-Book’ activity to help children to write up their discoveries. You can provide a Picture Bank with images to prompt writing on different topics within the subject and Word Banks to provide sentence starters and key vocabulary.

Although these examples are for a specific assignment, you can easily apply the same methods to any research activity with Clicker.

If you have a particular topic or lesson idea that you would like some help with, you can contact me via phone at 01604 671691 or email at gemma.dean@cricksoft.com. 

Recently we were asked about using Clicker alongside Talk for Writing in our Clicker Community Facebook group. I answered with some suggestions, but I felt it was such  a good topic it would be beneficial to write up some ideas in more detail for each stage of the Talk for Writing approach.  

Stage one: Imitation

In stage one you’re introducing the story that you’ll be working on with your class orally.  The sets in our Story Corner on LearningGrids could be used as a model text, they have clear structures and language patterns that are ideal for oral retelling. We also have lots of resources for various writing abilities, that can be used or adapted to support any story. They’re easily shared through cloud storage too, so pupils can access them and retell the story at home!

Children could re-tell and record each stage of the story using a Tell the Story Talk Set, like this example for Little Red Riding Hood. You could create your own Talk Set using the images from your story map that children can use to record their oral retelling of the story.

Once children are confident at this stage and you’re reading the text together (perhaps with a Clicker Book projected onto your whiteboard), you could use the Record & Play button to record children’s analysis of the underlying pattern of the story and simple writing tools that have been used.

Stage two: Innovation

When children have an in-depth understanding and recall of the story, they can start to adapt it. We have lots of resources to support a wide range of abilities, such as the Traditional Story Words Word Bank which is full of options to help children make simple substitutions. Children could also make  a more significant change such as modifying the genre. For example, they could retell the story as a newspaper report using the Recount writing frame for support.

Shared writing is an important part of this stage. You could build your story in Clicker with a Word Bank full of vocabulary and phrases to inspire children and act as a stimulus for when they are planning their own changes to the story. You could model correcting spelling mistakes using the talking Spell Check tool here as well. Children can hear the story building, sentence by sentence, with the speech feedback too. They can instantly hear if the sentence flows and adds to the story and amend it if needed. This is a fantastic tool for developing writing stamina and editing skills. 

A Cloze Document can provide more support for children, particularly at the simple substitution stage. With the story added as the text you could use the Custom Suggestions option to provide alternatives with no right or wrong answer. You could also turn off the Suggestions so children can add their own ideas. This is another great way of modelling the style of text and vocabulary used in context.

At this stage, when retelling the story orally, children may be adding and substituting their own details. This could be a good time to re-use the resources you used previously and have children retell their story with changes to solidify their ideas before moving on to the final stage.

Stage three: Invention

At this stage, children embark on writing their own stories  while following the pattern provided in the model text. They could be referring to recordings in a Talk Set or their story map in a Clicker Board while they write. 

The support tools available in the document could also be used to encourage and develop children’s proof reading and editing skills. They can hear their story read back to them at various stages of the writing process. The talking Spell Check and Predictor can provide support and help the writing fluency of less confident writers.

For children attempting a more challenging approach, such as a change of genre or viewpoint, Word Banks can provide further support and structure. Some children may benefit from the support of a Connect Set to help them to maintain the pattern offered by the model text.

Once children are happy with their stories, they can be used to create a Clicker Book and children can record themselves using either just a microphone with the Record & Play button or with a webcam to include a video of them retelling their stories.

Throughout the writing process

While you’re working through each stage, you’ll also be covering various grammar rules and completing spelling tasks with pupils to reinforce their writing skills.

Some Clicker Sets that can help children to develop their writing include Expanding Sentences, which is a fantastic resource for encouraging children to embellish their writing and add more detail.

The resources in Creative Writing provide support for developing writing about various settings and characters, encouraging children to use more ambitious vocabulary and various sentence structures in their story and to help children to immerse themselves in their story.

Although I have highlighted how Clicker can be used to support the Talk for Writing approach, our resources can be used to enrich any approach to the teaching of writing with Clicker 8.

If you have a particular topic or lesson idea that you would like some help with, you can contact me via phone at 01604 671691 or email at gemma.dean@cricksoft.com.