Farm Animals: Adaptable resources to meet learners’ needs
We’ve recently published a new group of adaptable Clicker resources on LearningGrids called Farm Animals. The collection is ideal for early readers and writers, as well as those learning English as an additional language (EAL), and includes resources with different levels of challenge to suit each learner’s needs.
Let’s explore how these resources can be personalised and used in conjunction with Clicker’s innovative features to offer additional support for your pupils and help them become independent readers and writers.
Some of the features we will focus on include:
- Tiered reading resources
- Personalised content
- Additional writing supports
Tiered reading resources
We built a tiered set of Farm Animals resources around two Clicker Books: a Read It Yourself book, ideal for pupils beginning to read independently, and a Read a Book for those who are more confident readers.
Each page of the ‘Farm Animals’ Read a Book includes two sentences. The first sentence names the animal. The second sentence tells the reader the location of the animal on the farm using a prepositional phrase. If a learner needs the text read aloud, they can click the speaker button on each page.
The Read It Yourself book offers a simplified version of the story. This book focuses on the first sentence from the Read a Book, creating a repetitive structure of “This is a…” to highlight the animal names. The speaker button is not included to encourage pupils to try to read the book for themselves. They can, however, click on individual words to hear them if needed.
Once you have assigned a learner the book most aligned with their current reading level, you can adapt the activity further using Clicker’s in-built features. You could add a microphone button to either of the Clicker Books to provide early readers with an easy way to practise reading the text. The recordings could also be used as part of a pupil’s reading record. EAL pupils could use the microphone to record the text in their first language. They could then share the completed books with the class.
Personalised content
The Farm Animals collection also includes several writing activities to help pupils learn the names of animals and develop an understanding of sentence structure.
The Sentence Set enables pupils to recreate simple sentences from the Read it Yourself book, and they can listen to a spoken model sentence if they need more support.
The Connect Set is a progression from the Sentence Set and mirrors the language in the Read a Book. In this activity, learners have an extra challenge as they have to choose the correct animal to complete the sentence.
You can edit any resource from LearningGrids to meet the needs of your pupils. For instance, if you wanted to use the Connect Set but have it mirror the content of the Read It Yourself book, you can easily change the content and layout in Edit mode. You can even add images to the animal cells in any set using Picturize. This would offer pupils additional support for completing the activity.
Additional writing supports
As part of the group of Farm Animals resources, we have included a Picture Words Word Bank. You could use the Word Bank before reading the book to introduce the animals. Or you could use it afterwards with more independent writers to encourage them to write their own sentences about them.
The Word Bank could also be used for spelling practice using a special writing support feature in the Document. In Options/Settings, you can turn on Picturize for the Document. Pupils can then type the name of the animal into the Document (using the Word Bank as visual support) and if they have written it correctly, the animal will appear, matching the Word Bank.
Another resource that can be enhanced by additional writing supports is the Farm Animals Clicker Board.
The activity focuses on making sentences with prepositional phrases. The cells prompt learners to plan two parts of the sentence – the subject (the what) and the object of the preposition (the where).
The Board would be a great whole-class activity on an interactive whiteboard or as a task for more independent writers. Pupils who need additional support can use the Predictor to help them write the words. A Voice Note is also included on the Board so learners can record the sentence or practise it before writing.
The bundle of Farm Animals resources also includes Matching and Listen and Say Talk Sets to reinforce the animal names. Plus, a Make a Book activity for pupils to create their own book about the animals.
Be sure to search for “animals” on LearningGrids or check out the On the Farm Collection for lots of other resources to inspire and support your readers and writers.
For more information on using the adaptable resources on LearningGrids to support your learners, you can review the below:
