Demonstrating student progress and attainment requires more than simply looking at a finished piece of work. Clicker provides a range of tools that help teachers capture a richer picture of what students know, understand, and can do. From writing grids and Talk Sets to Voice Notes and Clicker Analytics, learners can record their ideas, communicate their understanding, and evidence their progress in ways that suit their individual needs.

Whatever Clicker Set or tool students are using to create their writing, you can collect valuable evidence that can inform assessment and target reviews. In this blog post, we'll explore how Clicker's supportive features help schools measure attainment, track progress over time, and gain deeper insights into each student’s learning journey.

Monitoring progress

Whenever students create a piece of work, teachers and support staff can see how they entered text, which support tools they used, and how independently they worked. Clicker Analytics can show if work has been copied and pasted from another source, which words were corrected using Spell Check, and any words that were added using the Predictor. Analytics also shows whether a student used the speech feedback tool to support them further. Teaching staff can track these insights over time to monitor progress.

This information is particularly valuable when tracking short-term targets. For example, if a student's target is to begin to write more independently, Analytics can show whether they typed words themselves or if they still needed some support from Clicker Sets, the Predictor, or speech feedback. Teachers can therefore measure progress towards independence rather than simply assessing the finished product.

Immediate formative assessment

Clicker Analytics collects information as the piece of writing is being created. Staff are quickly able to assess pieces of work against targets - especially spelling. Within Analytics you are able to see when students used Spell Check and what they had initially typed into the Document. This means you can track any common misspellings and target them appropriately. You can copy the list of words to create a personalized spelling list for your students in seconds, and it means no additional work for staff - Clicker does the collating for you!

Evidence for individual targets

Voice Notes provide an alternative way for students to capture and demonstrate their learning, particularly those who may struggle with writing, spelling, or organizing their ideas independently. Students are able to record their thoughts verbally, allowing them to show understanding without being limited by their writing skills.

This enables students to capture their thoughts throughout different curriculum areas, creating rich evidence of progress towards personalized learning targets. Teachers can then use these recordings to assess speaking and listening skills, monitor understanding, and provide clear evidence of attainment that might not be evident from written work alone.

Gathering student voice

Talk Sets and writing grids provide an accessible way for students to share their views, opinions, and reflections on their own learning. Teachers can create structured grids or Talk Sets with supportive vocabulary, symbols, images, and sentence starters, removing common barriers for learners who may find it difficult to construct their answers or organize their thoughts. You can use the completed work as evidence of student voice, demonstrating how students feel about their learning, what support they find helpful, and their aspirations or next steps.

Want to know more about using Clicker to support assessment? You might find these resources useful:

• Curriculum assessment with Clicker: Formative and summative
  
  
• Use Clicker Analytics
  

For personalized advice on using Clicker with your learners, schedule a customer care meeting at any point during your subscription.

In this blog post, I will outline a few quick and simple things you can do with the writing support tools in Clicker to help your students write. Everything in this blog post is easy to implement, with minimal preparation and maximum impact in the classroom. However, if you have any questions about any of the tips, we’re more than happy to help.

Whether you're supporting emerging writers, encouraging reluctant learners, or aiming to boost writing confidence across the board, these practical tips will help you get the most out of Clicker right away.

Let’s explore how Clicker can become a powerful tool to help develop students’ writing skills, one step at a time.

Voice Notes

Using Voice Notes, students can record their own audio notes before they write, in three quick clicks!

Students can rehearse their sentences and capture their initial thoughts and ideas before they begin writing.

• Students can listen to their Voice Notes as many times as they need.
  
  
• Voice Notes can bridge the gap between thinking and writing.
  
  
• They also help to develop oral language skills. Students can explain their reasoning aloud, which is also a huge benefit for English language learners.

Educators can also use Voice Notes. They can:

• Pre-record instructions, broken down into smaller steps, to help learners break their tasks into manageable steps.
  
  
• Leave personalized audio feedback on student work, quickly and informally, without adding to teacher workload.
  
  
• Show modeled thinking, as this can be pre-recorded into the document for students to access.

Voice Notes are easy and simple to use, not just for staff but for students too!

Here is how you can access Voice Notes:

Predictor

Clicker’s built in Predictor suggests words even before your student has begun to type, offering writing support for students who struggle with “blank page syndrome” or find it difficult to get started and maintain momentum with their written tasks.

The Predictor is an intuitive tool to boost children’s confidence and independence, helping them to see their thoughts correctly turned into writing without waiting for adult support. It also suggests a wider range of more advanced and varied vocabulary to support vocabulary development.

Additionally, the Predictor works alongside any open writing grids, such as Word Banks, to suggest vocabulary that is relevant to the topic or subject students are writing about.

Here is how you can turn the Predictor on and off:

LearningGrids

Clicker's LearningGrids is a valuable lesson resource tool for teachers and students.

LearningGrids is our bank of thousands of ready-made resources tailored to different subjects, topics, and ability levels across the curriculum. All designed by our in-house curriculum team, these resources are high-quality and closely aligned with curriculum needs. They are regularly updated and expanded, ensuring fresh, relevant content is always available to save teachers’ time.

Here are some of the resources you can assign to learners to give them a quick writing boost:

• Word Banks: When using a Word Bank, the learner has point-and-click access to the key words from the topic at the bottom of their document. This means they can use those words without having to worry about spelling or word recall.
  
  
• Sentence Sets: Each grid in a Sentence Set contains all the words a learner will need to build a sentence. This support helps to develop early writing skills like left-to-right directionality and capital letter use.
  
  
• Connect Sets: A Connect Set provides learners with clusters of words and phrases to help them build a coherent piece of text.

For students, LearningGrids provides structured support that increases confidence and independence when reading and writing.

Talk Sets

Talk Sets are a great way to support the development of speaking and listening skills.

These picture-based resources can be used to create three different types of activity to support children where they are:

• Listen and Say: The learner listens to a recording of new words and then practices saying them with the Sound Recorder.
  
  
• Talk About: The learner can click on an image to record their thoughts and understanding of the topic.
  
  
• Tell the Story: The learner has a series of images that follow a sequence, and they can record themselves talking about each one to tell the story from start to finish.

Talk Sets are particularly effective for those who struggle to express themselves in written form, and for English language learners. Students can record their knowledge or opinions easily and quickly. Talk Sets take away the pressure of writing and help children to express what they know!

Here is how to record into a Talk Set:

Clicker Boards

Clicker Boards are a powerful tool for gathering students’ ideas and thoughts before writing. They help learners to organize their thinking and prepare for writing tasks through an easy-to-use mind mapping or planning tool.

With a Clicker Board displayed on your interactive whiteboard, students can share their ideas while you collect them in the moment and build a visual bank of inspiration for them to draw on. 

You can also add Voice Notes to your Boards, helping to turn thinking into writing.

Here is how you can add information to a Clicker Board:

Once you have collected vocabulary and ideas, you can turn your Board into a Word Bank to support and guide the writing process in the Document. By organizing key words and phrases in one place, young writers are better equipped to translate their ideas into coherent, well-structured text.

Here is how you can turn a Clicker Board into a Word Bank:

Additional resources

Find out more about how Clicker can support students in the classroom:

• LearningGrids: Reading and writing resources for adaptive teaching
  
  
• Clicker for whole class teaching
  
  
• On-demand webinars: Free recordings of our fantastic webinars. Explore how Clicker can support a variety of learners, needs, and settings.