Reviews

Extract from "The magic hour"
Educational Computing and Technology April 2002

"The choice of motivating materials available for literacy lessons is ever expanding. Gillian Blatherwick looks at some of the latest ICT additions.

A variety of ICT experiences ranging from consolidation to imaginative activities can find a place in the daily literacy lesson based on both published and teacher-made resources.

There are statutory requirements for using ICT in literacy. The range of texts offered to children at Key Stage 1 should 'include print and ICT-based information texts including those with continuous text and relevant illustrations'.

… "New materials are being launched all the time. One of the most exciting new concepts is Planet Wobble, created by Crick Software. It is essentially a reading scheme for the 21st Century. It includes animated talking books and literacy strategy based on screen activities to encourage and develop early reading and writing skills through differentiated word, sentence and text level activities.

"As well as on-screen books it comes with printed versions and a template that allows teachers and classes to write their own versions of the stories in the shared writing part of the Literacy Hour.

"Crick's highly successful non-fiction talking books in the Find Out and Write About series are also a valuable resource. The series uses a differentiated text for research and provides opportunities for writing explanatory text with the support of a word bank and synthesised speech. It also inspires the more adventurous teacher to use the templates provided to make their own texts using scanned or digital camera images to create on-screen books that are specific to the needs and interests of the class."

"Powerful generic framework software such as Clicker 4… make it easy to create simple tasks. For example Key Stage 1 teachers use them extensively to make very simple but effective word order activities. They are based on shared texts, supporting less-able pupils with speech, and challenging the more able by requiring them to add to the basic sentence using the word processing facility.

Gillian Blatherwick concludes "Where to stop? There is a vast range of resources that can really enhance teaching and learning in a motivational way. They can cut down on preparation time- wordsearches, handwriting practice, spelling activities, lesson plans- is an hour really long enough?!"

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