Clicker®

Nan Davies
Ysgol Deganwy Conwy

I am teaching a mixed class of reception, year 1 and year 2 children and so need to ensure that I keep everyone’s attention.  The beauty of using Clicker is that everybody listens from the beginning to the end of the lesson.  I teach a class of children with speech and language difficulties.  They have a wide range of differing ability levels and by using Clicker I can extend the work for the more able, whilst still including the whole class in the lesson.

I have made talking storybooks with the children based on events the children have been part of.  For example, we took a picnic and recreated the Ugly Bug Ball.  All the children dressed up as characters, we took photos on the trip, and then created a book when we returned.  We were able to use the speech support, and also recorded the children’s voices. 

"I videoed the children...
which we incorporated
into our own talking book"We then took this one step further in the classroom.  We were reading the Jill Murphy book, Whatever Next, and I videoed the children reading the book, which we incorporated into our own talking book.  We have two bears in the class, Tilly and Toby who are involved in lots of exciting adventures.  In this story, Toby went into space!  We took photos of him, and the children made up the story which they recorded into Clicker.  Alongside the video clips of the children reading, singing and playing instruments, we also used illustrations using the children’s paintings and models.   We have also included ToolTips to label areas of the pictures to help with their language development. 

"We have also included ToolTips
to label areas of the pictures..."My class have much better visual skills than auditory skills, and Clicker plays to their strengths, providing visual clues alongside the auditory feedback.  We have used the talking-book facility in Clicker to really focus on key concepts.  For example we have just been looking at prepositions of place and we have created a talking book to reinforce the concept with one of our infamous class bears – Tilly.

We have been able to use the books as an assessment tool to monitor the clarity of their speech as well as their progress.  They’re also a permanent record of our work. 

The great thing about using Clicker is that everybody is involved, everyone can access the stories and everyone listens.  The stories are motivating and hold their attention.  They are learning so much, and yet they just see it as having fun!

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