Clicker is designed as a supportive tool to empower pupils throughout the writing process. Recently, I’ve been showing teachers the benefits of using Clicker Boards as a versatile planning tool.

Our latest improvements to Clicker Board in Clicker Writer provide further scaffolds for pupils to call upon whenever they choose. In this blog, I’ve used a teaching context from my time as a Year 4 teacher to demonstrate those scaffolds.

Each year we wrote non-chronological reports about natural disasters. Gathering the ideas and language we had developed prior to writing independently helped make pupils’ written outcomes successful.

Here’s how Clicker Boards can support that success.

Clicker’s scaffolds

Pupils can call upon all of Clicker’s support features to add ideas to their Clicker Board. They can use Clicker’s intelligent, phonetic Predictor to quickly write ideas, or use the ‘Dictate’ button on the on-screen keyboard to add ideas by speaking. As in all areas of Clicker, pupils can right-click or use sound shift to have the contents of their Clicker Board read back in their chosen high-quality voice.

Send to Document

Referencing a plan whilst engaged in the act of writing is a skill that requires teaching. In Clicker Writer, pupils can easily send each Clicker Board to their Document. This provides them with an accessible visual reminder of all the ideas they have developed before formulating them into a coherent piece of writing.

Send Voice Notes from your Clicker Board

When pupils talk through their ideas, it often results in richer idea generation. These thoughts can easily be captured in Voice Notes on a Clicker Board. When it comes to constructing the full text, pupils can send these Voice Notes to the Document. While writing, they can easily hear the ideas they were formulating orally in planning sessions.

Make a Word Bank

With my classes, I always dedicated significant time to gathering vocabulary from a wide variety of texts before planning our writing. Anyone who has been to our recent CPD Days will have heard me eulogising the benefits of turning Working Walls into Clicker Word Banks. I know this is something that teachers often do with their planning – you can see me do this with one of my Year 3 history plans in the top video on this page.

Clicker Boards gives this power to pupils. They can add all the vocabulary they know they want to use to their Clicker Board, then turn this into a Word Bank to quickly access while they are writing. As with all Clicker Sets, pupils can hear the vocabulary read back and click to send it to the Document.

Pictures and symbols

Clicker’s Picturize feature is powerful when used by both teachers and pupils. Hit Picturize to instantly add artist-drawn pictures from the CrickPix library or from the 10,000 Widgit Symbols included in Clicker. Teachers can add visuals to stimulate planning ideas or pupils can Picturize their plan – this puts the power of the visual support in the hands of the learner. Of course, you can also browse pictures or add a photograph.

LearningGrids

Our regularly updated bank of over 4,000 resources on LearningGrids provides a great starting point for inspiration on how you can use Clicker with the children in your classrooms. This includes resources that encourage pupils to use Clicker Boards as more than a planning tool. For example, try some of our sequencing activities or character profiles. Choose a Clicker Board from here as a starting point or use one of the premade Clicker Board layouts when you select ‘New Clicker Board’.

How to update

All updates are available to current Clicker Writer subscribers.

On Chromebook, the app will update automatically. iPads with automatic updates turned on will see the new features instantly; if not, update Clicker Writer via the App Store.

If you have any other questions about using Clicker Writer

• We have a range of tutorials to help with using the app.
  
  
• For technical questions and any issues updating the app, you can contact our technical support team.