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Your name matters: Enhancing Clicker's Word Pool for accurate pronunciation and spelling

3rd June 2024

During a recent demonstration, I was showing a school how you can add words to Clicker’s Word Pool (dictionary) so that they are included in the Spell Check. And, because Clicker reads aloud what pupils have written, I also showed how Word Pool can change the way Clicker pronounces a word. Schools are frequently interested in this tool because it enables them to add the correct spelling and pronunciation of pupils’ names. 

Recently, we have seen the I am not a typo campaign which is calling for tech companies to expand their name dictionaries so that all first names are treated equally by technology.  

As technology is increasingly prominent in children’s lives, we felt it was important to respond to this campaign’s request and widen our name database so that fewer names (remembering to use a capital letter!) get that red squiggly line without needing to be added to Word Pool.  

This is an exciting development for our schools and all our users!  

In our next Clicker and DocsPlus updates, we will include the annual spreadsheet of names the Office of National Statistics release – and continue to make this update annually.  

We pride ourselves on the inclusivity of our software, so it is great to be able to show schools that this now expands to our name database!  

Changing the pronunciation of a word in Clicker using Word Pool 

Once our name databases have been updated, Word Pool will still be a useful tool to use for pupils’ names to ensure the pronunciation is accurate. So, here’s how you can amend the pronunciation of a word using Word Pool: 

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