Helping students move beyond simple sentences can be a challenge - especially in early writing. Many students can form a complete sentence but adding detail and creating vivid imagery is a bigger step. Today, I wanted to take a closer look at a simple but powerful resource on LearningGrids: the Expanding Sentences Connect Set. It’s a flexible activity that helps students explore how small changes can transform their writing.

Why I chose this Clicker Set

Expanding Sentences is straightforward - but highly effective. It gives students an accessible way to experiment with language and see immediate results.

This Connect Set:

• Helps students see how adding detail transforms their writing
  
  
• Strengthens understanding of sentence structure and parts of speech
  
  
• Encourages creativity with no single “right answer”
  
  
• Can be easily adapted to meet a wide range of student needs

This activity is ideal for early elementary students or any learners who are developing confidence with sentence structure and descriptive language.

How I would use the resource

Each grid in the Expanding Sentences set starts with a simple sentence and provides students with descriptive words and phrases to build upon it. While students can use the set independently, I find it especially powerful as a whole-class teaching tool.

I would begin by writing a simple sentence from the grid, for example: “A dog barked.” Then, I’d temporarily hide the Clicker Grid and ask: What makes this a sentence? What do we need for it to be complete? We’d identify the subject and predicate, confirming that it is a complete sentence. But I’d ask: Is it interesting? Does it tell us very much?

Next, I’d reintroduce the Clicker Grid and explore how we can expand the sentence by adding descriptive language, such as adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases.

Together, we might create sentences like: “A tiny dog barked ferociously at the children.” or “A huge stray dog barked mournfully for food.”

We’d then compare these to the original sentence: What’s different? What new details do we have? What picture do these sentences create in your mind? This discussion helps students see that while the structure remains the same, the added detail makes the writing far more engaging and meaningful.

Students can then continue independently, using the other grids to create a range of descriptive sentences. I might challenge them to create sentences that paint very different pictures from the same starting point.

How I might adapt the activity

One of the strengths of this resource is how easily it can be adjusted to suit different learners.

Simplify the task

For some students, I would reduce the number of options. For example, I might remove the adverbs cluster in Edit Mode. This way students could just focus on adding an adjective to describe the subject and expanding the predicate with a prepositional phrase. This keeps the task manageable while still building key skills.

Encourage student-generated language

It’s important that students know they’re not limited to the grid. For example, a student might select: “A heavy package arrived…” and then add their own idea, such as: “…in the classroom.” This reinforces that the grid is a support - not a limit.

Increase interaction and engagement

To deepen engagement, I might replace grid options with parts of speech labels. I could ask students to suggest their own adjectives or prepositional phrases. This turns the activity into a more collaborative and language-rich experience.

By the end of the lesson, students should see how including detail in their sentences and using descriptive language makes their writing more interesting and brings it to life for their readers.

Explore more

Try out the Expanding Sentences Connect Set with your class.

You might also find these helpful:

• Quick wins with Clicker’s writing support tools
  
  
• Early elementary writing with Clicker
  
  

If you have been exploring LearningGrids recently, you may have seen the new Clicker Book, The Boy Who Only Ate Pancakes. The book is the latest in our collaboration with the organization, Book Dash.

In this blog, we’ll be exploring the Book Dash collection, its purpose, and how you can use the collection with your learners.

What is Book Dash?

Book Dash is a nonprofit organization based in South Africa. Their vision is that - “every child should own a hundred books by the age of five.”

Book Dash’s volunteer creatives have written hundreds of open-access picture books. Many of the books have strong African themes, but the messages of the stories are universal. Most of the books are aimed at early readers, and many are available in multiple languages. The books are published under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 license, which means that anyone can access and use the books for free!

Book Dash and Clicker

Book Dash wants as many children as possible to have access to their stories. That’s why they have given us permission to use their resources to create Clicker Books and supporting activities. We don’t make any changes to the original stories, and we also try to maintain the original designs of the books as much as possible.

Working with Book Dash gives our users access to stories with diverse representation. The stories have beautiful illustrations to engage readers and bring the stories to life. On all our resources, we give full acknowledgement to Book Dash, so hopefully through Clicker, more people are becoming familiar with their organisation and their mission.

We currently have 12 Book Dash books published on LearningGrids, which you can find in Story Corner. For all the titles, we create a Clicker Book version of the story, as well as a range of speaking and writing activities to support the book. These include Sentence and Connect Sets to rewrite the story with varying levels of support, as well as Word Banks and a Make a Book to create your own version of the story. A Talk Set is also provided to practice recording the story before the writing activities or to create an oral presentation.

Curriculum links

In many cases, we also create Clicker Boards or other resources that link the theme of the book to other curriculum areas or topics. In the latest story, the boy’s mom sneaks healthy ingredients into her son’s pancakes since that is the only food he will eat. This book is a good stimulus for discussions about healthy eating. You’ll find quite a few related resources already on LearningGrids. Plus, we have included a Clicker Board with the Book Dash resources that encourages students to think of healthy items that they could add to different foods, such as with pizza or yogurt or pancakes.

There are a number of books that are great for links to social emotional learning. For example, Who Is Our Friend? (about a group of animals who have an unlikely friend that helps them) is a perfect lead-in for talking about the importance of friendship and how friends help us. Or My Inside Weather - a story about a child who uses the weather to talk about her feelings.

There are also books that lend themselves to focusing on word level work, such as Little Ant’s Big Plan. It is about how an ant’s love of reading saves the day, but it also has rhyming words for students to explore. A House for Mouse can be used to have a closer look at the use of adjectives in the description of Mouse’s dreams.

Some books, such as What If (a story about a girl with a big imagination), are a perfect inspiration for students’ own story writing. Goldfish Genius, which is a text-free book, provides a valuable opportunity for students to develop their own creative story-telling skills.

What’s coming next?

Next month, we will be publishing resources for the book "Going Places.” It is about the adventures children can go on when they read books – great for discussions with students about what type of adventures they like to read about.

Keep your eyes out on LearningGrids for more Book Dash titles in the future!

If you’d like to learn more about using our LearningGrids content to support your students, you can read these blogs:

• Adapting Clicker LearningGrids resources with Widgit Symbols
  
  
• Weather activities to get students thinking, talking, and writing
  
  
• LearningGrids: Reading and writing resources for adaptive teaching
  
  

We’ve recently published a new group of adaptable Clicker resources on LearningGrids called Farm Animals. The collection is ideal for early readers and writers, as well as English language learners (ELLs), and includes resources with different levels of challenge to suit each student’s needs.

Let’s explore how you can personalize these resources in conjunction with Clicker’s innovative features to offer additional support for your students and help them become independent readers and writers.

Some of the features we will focus on include:

• Differentiated resources
  
  
• Personalized content
  
  
• Additional writing supports

Differentiated resources

We built a tiered set of Farm Animals resources around two Clicker Books: a Read It Yourself book, ideal for pupils beginning to read independently, and a Read a Book for those who are more confident readers.

Each page of the ‘Farm Animals’ Read a Book includes two sentences. The first sentence names the animal. The second sentence tells the reader the location of the animal on the farm using a prepositional phrase. If a student needs the text read aloud, they can click the speaker button on each page.

The Read It Yourself book offers a simplified version of the story. This book focuses on the first sentence from the Read a Book, creating a repetitive structure of “This is a…” to highlight the animal names. The speaker button is not included to encourage students to try to read the book for themselves. They can, however, click on individual words to hear them if needed.

Once you have assigned a student the book most aligned with their current reading level, you can adapt the activity further using Clicker’s in-built features. You could add a microphone button to either of the Clicker Books to provide early readers with an easy way to practice reading the text. The recordings could be used as part of a student’s reading record. ELLs could use the microphone to record the text in their first language. They could then share the completed books with the class.

Personalized content

The Farm Animals collection also includes several writing activities to help students learn the names of animals and develop an understanding of sentence structure.

The Sentence Set enables students to recreate simple sentences from the Read it Yourself book, and students can listen to a spoken model sentence if they need more support.

The Connect Set is a progression from the Sentence Set and mirrors the language in the Read a Book. In this activity, students have an extra challenge as they have to choose the correct animal to complete the sentence.

You can edit any resource from LearningGrids to meet the needs of your students. For instance, if you wanted to use the Connect Set but have it mirror the content of the Read It Yourself book, you can easily change the content and layout in Edit mode. You can even add images to the animal cells in any set using Picturize. This would offer students additional support for completing the activity.

Additional writing supports

As part of the group of Farm Animals resources, we have included a Picture Words Word Bank. You could use the Word Bank before reading the book to introduce the animals. Or you could use it afterwards with more independent writers to encourage them to write their own sentences about them.

The Word Bank could also be used for spelling practice, using a special writing support feature in the Document. In Options/Settings, you can turn on Picturize for the Document. Students can then type the name of the animal into the Document (using the Word Bank as visual support) and if they have written it correctly, the animal will appear, matching the Word Bank.

Another resource that you can enhance with additional writing supports is the Farm Animals Clicker Board.

The activity focuses on making sentences with prepositional phrases. The cells prompt students to plan two parts of the sentence – the subject (the what) and the object of the preposition (the where).

The Board would be a great whole-class activity on an interactive whiteboard or as a task for more independent writers. Students who need additional support can use the Predictor to help them write the words. A Voice Note is also included so that students can record the sentence or practice the sentence before writing.

The bundle of Farm Animals resources also includes Matching and Listen and Say Talk Sets to reinforce the animal names. Plus, a Make a Book activity for students to create their own book about the animals.

Be sure to search for “animals” on LearningGrids or check out the At the Farm Collection for lots of other resources to inspire and support your readers and writers.

For more information on using the adaptable resources on LearningGrids to support your students, you can review the below:

• Adapting Clicker LearningGrids resources with Widgit Symbols
  
  
• Spiders!!! Cross-curricular activities to engage readers and writers
  
  
• LearningGrids: Reading and writing resources for adaptive teaching

We recently published a new group of Clicker sets - All About Spiders. The resources focus on the unique features and behaviors of spiders. We chose the topic because it covers a range of science learning objectives but also because spiders catch the imagination of many students - and can keep them engaged in reading and writing.

These aren’t the only arachnid-themed Clicker sets on LearningGrids. We have a range of other cross-curricular spider activities that can inspire the readers and writers in your classrooms.

Let’s have a look at resources in a few LearningGrids categories:

• Greek Myths
  
  
• Literature
  
  
• Nursery Rhymes
  
  
• Creative Writing

Greek Myths

In the Story Corner, you’ll find the Greek myth The Weaving Contest. It is the story of Arachne who challenges the goddess Athena to a weaving contest. Athena punishes Arachne by transforming her into a spider. There is a Clicker Book version of the myth to read, as well as a range of writing activities to help students retell the story and demonstrate their understanding.

Literature

Students always love the classic novel Charlotte’s Web - the story of Wilbur the pig and his friendship with a spider named Charlotte. Using the resources on LearningGrids, students can write about the novel, analyzing the characters and themes. There are also activities to support the development of persuasive writing skills – students write to a character in the story to persuade them to spare Wilbur’s life.

Nursery Rhymes

The next group of Clicker sets with a spiders’ theme is geared toward younger learners. The Itsy Bitsy Spider resources start with a simple Clicker Book to practice reading the nursery rhyme. Then there are a range of supporting activities, including a Clicker Board for sequencing and a Talk Set that focuses on creating rhyming strings, as well as Sentence and Connect Sets for rewriting the nursery rhyme.

Creative Writing

With Halloween coming soon, the spooky season is upon us. And what’s spookier than spiders and cobwebs! To help spark students’ imagination and support their creative writing, there are a number of spooky Word Banks, Writing Frames, Clicker Boards, and Talk Sets.

Be sure to visit LearningGrids and check out Collections for other cross-curricular topic ideas to engage your readers and writers. Here are some other resources you might find helpful:

• LearningGrids: Reading and writing resources for adaptive teaching
  
  
• Using Clicker with traditional stories
  
  
• Supporting struggling writers with Clicker Q&A

We recently published some new Clicker Sets on LearningGrids to support the five-finger retell method. These simple resources help develop important literacy skills and highlight the versatility of Clicker to meet a range of classroom and student needs.  

Let’s have a look at: 

• What the five-finger method is 
  

• How the five-finger retell sets combine with other LearningGrids resources to support literacy 
  

• How Clicker’s flexibility enhances these sets 

What is a five-finger retell? 

The five-finger retell method is a technique that provides a visual (and physical) element to help students summarize the key parts of a story. Each finger of the hand represents a different story component. The technique, and our Clicker Sets, can develop students’ retelling skills and assess their comprehension of a story. 

The technique is often used as an oral activity where the teacher and students use their hand to go through the main parts of a story. Many teachers also encourage this to be a written activity as well. 

How can you use the Clicker Sets? 

To introduce the five-finger retell concept to students, it works best to use a familiar story, such as a simple fairy tale. On LearningGrids we have a range of Clicker Traditional Tales and these work perfectly for introducing this retell method.  

The class can read a Clicker Book, such as Jack and the Beanstalk, all together or in small groups. Then the teacher can go back through the story, drawing students’ attention to the different story elements and using their hand as a prompt. The teacher can then use the Clicker Board to record the groups’ responses – the visual on the board, as well as the headings, reinforce the different story elements again.  

After students have become familiar with the method, the idea is to give students a chance to try it for themselves with another story. Go back to LearningGrids for a different Clicker traditional story, or explore other collections in our Story Corner, such as the Book Dash titles, the Planet Wobble series, or even the Myths & Legends for slightly older students. The books could be read together and students could then do a retell on their own. 

The Clicker Sets that we created provide different options to match the needs and abilities of students. As encouraged in universal design for learning, we offer multiple forms of expression for students. For some students, such as emergent or early writers, it might be more appropriate for them to use the Talk Set to do the retell.  

For other students, more independent writers, they could use the Word Bank with sentence starters. Or they could use the Clicker Board – you could even print out the Clicker Board to do the activity away from the computer if that was needed. 

How does Clicker’s flexibility further benefit students’ learning? 

Some students may need more support than just the sentence starters when they are using the five-finger retell Word Bank. They could easily turn on word prediction to help them with spelling as they are writing. They would also benefit from having access to banks of story- specific key words. For all of the Clicker Traditional Stories and most of the other books in the Story Corner, we provide Word Banks to help students write about those stories.

For instance, you might want to use the Goldilocks and the Three Bears - Quick Words set alongside the five-finger retell sentence starters. Combing grids from both sets gives easy access to students while they are writing their retell. 

As with all resources on LearningGrids, the five-finger retell sets are adaptable to match your needs. For example, some educators use different headings for the five key parts of the story - instead of beginning/middle/end, some use beginning/problem/solution. It is quick and easy to change the headings on the Clicker Board or the starters in the Word Bank.  

Once students are familiar with the main parts of a story, they can use the resources to plan their stories – so instead of five-finger retell, they could become five-finger story planners. 

Be sure to visit LearningGrids for other retell Clicker Sets. Here are some other resources that you might find helpful: 

• Early elementary writing with Clicker blog post 
  

• Early reading support with Clicker blog post 
  

• Using Clicker to build ELL literacy proficiency webinar 

In a recent blog post, I looked at how our new CVC decodable Clicker Books support a science of reading approach to phonics instruction. Today I want to explore some of the additional Clicker resources on LearningGrids that can be used alongside the decodable stories.

For each of the books (Tig in Mud, Bug in a Bin, and Peg and Bob), there is a series of activities related to:

• Pre-reading revision

• Text comprehension and vocabulary extension

• Decoding skills

Decodable stories: Pre-reading revision

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, it is important to use decodable books that are based on sound-spellings that readers have already been taught. The Letters & Words Clicker Board can be used before any of the books to revise and reinforce the letters and sounds that will be covered in the text. The CVC words from the story are also included on the Clicker Board to practice segmenting and blending the words before they come across them in the Clicker Book.

The Key Words Matching Set reinforces the CVC words in the decodable stories' text.

Text comprehension and vocabulary extension

Talking about the plot and exploring the children’s understanding is an important part of using decodable stories. The stories and pictures have been authored so that there are things to talk about and ways to extend vocabulary, even starting on the cover – “Who do you think Tig is?” “What do you think will happen to Tig?”

Once students have read the stories, they can use the Tell the Story activity or the Clicker Board sequencing activity to retell the story in their own words.

Decoding skills

A Connect Set and a Sentence Set are also included, allowing students to rewrite the story while practicing their decoding skills. With the Connect Set, students need to sound out the last word to choose the correct CVC word to complete the sentence.

The Sentence Set provides another opportunity to decode the text from the decodable stories, as well as reinforce an understanding of sentence structure. To make it a greater challenge for some students, the model sentence could be changed to a spoken model so that students have to listen to the sentence and then decode the word choices to recreate the sentence.

The Key Words Talk Set can also be used for decoding practice, either before or after they read the Clicker Book. Initially students may need to record themselves segmenting and blending the words (/c/ /ă/ /t/ - cat). But with enough decoding practice, orthographic mapping will allow most children to read the words from sight – without having to sound them out each time.

Click on the links below to see the CVC decodable stories and their supporting Clicker Sets in LearningGrids:

• Tig in Mud

• Bug in a Bin

• Peg and Bob

Be sure to check out the Sounds & Letters category on LearningGrids for many other phonics related activities. Here are some other resources you might find helpful:

• Support early reading with Clicker

• Clicker and Phonics webinar

As many schools revise their reading instruction to be more aligned with the science of reading, phonics has gained greater traction in early elementary classrooms. Decodable books have an important role to play in the teaching of phonics, and on LearningGrids we have recently published three CVC decodable Clicker Books.

What is the science of reading?

The science of reading is a collection of research from the past few decades that has explored effective strategies for teaching children to read. The strategies are especially important for struggling readers. The research provides a framework for evidence-based reading instruction and focuses on five main areas:

1. Phonemic awareness
   
2. Phonics
   
3. Fluency
   
4. Vocabulary
   
5. Comprehension

Let’s have a closer look at phonics, in particular.

What is phonics?

Phonics involves matching the sounds (phonemes) of spoken English with the individual letters (graphemes) or groups of letters. Phonics instruction helps students increase their ability to sound out, or decode, new words.

How does phonics align with the science of reading?

One of the main findings from the science of reading is that there needs to be explicit and systematic instruction. For phonics, this means teachers usually follow a plan. This plan shows what sounds they teach and the order they teach them.

There isn’t an overarching scope and sequence that all schools use. However, most schools begin by teaching short vowel sounds. This means that CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words are usually among the first words children can read.

With explicit and systematic phonics instruction, students need to be given lots of ways to practice the new sounds and letters that they are taught. This is why decodable books are so important.

What are decodable books?

Decodable books are texts that focus on specific phonics patterns. The books give students the opportunity to use their segmenting and blending skills to decode words in context. It is important that students are offered decodable books based on what sound-spellings they have already been taught. The majority of the words in the text should be able to be sounded out based on the student’s phonic knowledge.

Clicker’s CVC decodable books

In the case of our new CVC decodable Clicker Books (Tig in Mud, Bug in a Bin, and Peg and Bob), we highlight in the notes exactly which sounds/letters each book focuses on. Almost all the words in the books are CVCs, but they do include a couple of high-frequency sight words, such as “the” and “is”.

We offer two versions of each book – a Read a Book and a Read It Yourself. Since many educators suggest getting a child to attempt to decode the text on their own first, you may want to use the Read It Yourself book. The only difference from the Read a Book version is that the speaker button has been removed – so that students can’t just listen to the book.

While the texts are simple, we have worked hard to create stories (and illustrations) that will catch the interest and imagination of young readers. Your students will have fun reading about the different characters: a mischievous dog, a mud-loving cat, and a large bug lurking in a toy bin!

In an upcoming blog post, I’ll explore the other Clicker activities that have been created to support these decodable Clicker Books. In the meantime, here are some other resources that you might find helpful:

• Support early reading with Clicker
  
• Building phonic confidence with Clicker webinar
  
• Clicker & phonics webinar

In a recent Clicker success story, AT Specialist Barb Lark mentioned that Clicker was used in Life Skills classrooms in Everett, Washington as part of the school district’s push to use Clicker to support students of all abilities. Life Skills courses often have an emphasis on communication and social interaction, health and self-care, daily living skills, and money management. 

On LearningGrids, we have a lot of Clicker resources, such as the Brushing My Teeth and Getting Ready sets, that can support the development of life skills. 

The Morning Routine Connect Set can be used to help students create a schedule for their morning activities. For some students, it may be more effective to use the Visual Schedule Clicker Board – including photographs can also improve their understanding and engagement. 

Any LearningGrids resource can be edited to personalize it for your students, or you can also create your own Clicker Sets. Why not take photographs of the street signs in your community and easily build a group of resources to teach and reinforce students’ understanding of their meaning. 

Photographs are also a powerful way to support daily living skills, such as doing your laundry. Clicker Sets can be valuable visual reminders of how to carry out the activity. The text in a Clicker Book can be made as simple or complex as needed. 

Interested in using Clicker as part of your Life Skills lessons? 

• Our website is full of friendly tutorials if you’d like to find out more about creating or editing your own Clicker resources. 
• Visit LearningGrids for ready-made Clicker Sets. 
• Talk to a team member about getting the most out of Clicker. 

Over the last few years, we have all seen how important it is to help students build a strong foundation for emotional well-being and resilience. A lot of research and studies have been done to look at the benefits of social emotional learning.

A focus on SEL: 

• Improves academic achievement  
• Increases prosocial behaviors (such as kindness, sharing, and empathy) 
• Improves student attitudes toward school 
• Reduces depression and stress among students 

Why use Clicker as part of SEL delivery?

Many schools have found ways to incorporate social emotional learning in their classrooms, but the difficulty can be in making sure that it is accessible and meets the needs of all students.  

With Clicker, you can: 

• Provide flexible support options to meet students’ needs 
• Accommodate different learning styles (multiple means of engagement and expression) 
• Offer a multisensory approach 
• Save time with ready-made resources 

LearningGrids includes a large range of free Clicker resources to support the different SEL categories. 

To see a selection of these Clicker Sets in action and learn more about how Clicker can support SEL in your classroom, be sure to watch the recording of the SEL webinar that Rebecca and I offered earlier this year. 

For more information about Clicker, please visit our website. 

Did you know that it was 120 years ago that Orville and Wilbur Wright made their first flight? On LearningGrids, we have Clicker resources to help your students learn the science behind flying and to commemorate Wright Brothers Day on December 17th.

We recently published a series of activities about the forces of flight. Students can read about the importance of weight, lift, thrust, and drag in the Forces of Flight Clicker Book. Use the Clicker Board with the class to consolidate students’ understanding of the four forces. They can then use the Connect Set, Talk Set, or Word Banks to share their learning in a piece of writing or as an oral presentation.

What will you be doing this Halloween – carving pumpkins, making costumes, trick-or-treating? Be sure to add reading and writing with Clicker to that list! LearningGrids is full of great Halloween resources to inspire all your readers and writers.

Your younger learners can read about a group of friends at a Halloween party and then use the supporting sets to talk and write about the activities. Using the Connect Set Halloween Fun, or the Halloween Word Bank for more independent writers, children can write about things they do to celebrate Halloween. Or explore instruction writing with the Making a Pumpkin Lantern resources.

Halloween is also the perfect time to write a spooky story or a ghostly poem, and we have lots of resources to support your children’s creativity. The recently published Suspense Writing Word Bank provides introductory phrases and other vocabulary to help build tension and excitement in stories. Your aspiring poets can use the Halloween Haiku or Spooky Words Word Banks to (pumpkin) spice up their poems.

Visit LearningGrids for many more Halloween resources.

Anchor charts can be a valuable tool to support learning in the classroom. They are used to capture and reinforce important information from a lesson. They are usually bright and colorful and are designed to catch students’ attention. Ideally, a teacher and their class create (or complete) the charts together – with the aim that the charts will “anchor” the learning for the students.

Have you ever thought about using Clicker Board to create an anchor chart?  With Clicker Board, you can set up the framework for the anchor chart ahead of time – such as this one on Character Traits.

Clicker Board has lots of different cell shapes and colors to use, and there are thousands of images in the Clicker Picture Library that you can include as well. You and your class or small group can complete the chart together using a large monitor or whiteboard. By pulling the key information from the students, they will be actively engaged in their learning.

The completed Clicker Board can then be printed out for a classroom display or kept online as part of a digital library of anchor charts – an easy reference point for your students. And you have a template that you can use again and again – what a fantastic time saver!

For a lot of children, summer vacation means a break from the stresses of school. But a change to the normal routine can bring other challenges for many children. Clicker is a good tool to use to check in with a child to see how they are doing.

If your child is struggling with the change, the When My Routine Changes Connect Set or the How Do You Feel Word Bank can help them express how the change makes them feel and what they can do to feel better. Their writing can be a great conversation starter for the two of you.

With all the action and excitement that summertime brings, don’t forget to plan in some quieter moments. Practicing mindfulness can help children manage their emotions and build self-control. If you are heading over to the neighborhood park or a friend’s house, why not make it a mindful walk on the way – focus on what you see, hear, smell, and feel. You can read about a similar walk in the Clicker Book A Mindful Walk – Read a Book. Children can use the Clicker Board to reflect on what they experienced during their own walk.

Explore LearningGrids for many more resources that focus on social-emotional learning.

For many schools there has been a renewed push towards phonics to help early or struggling readers and writers. This has impacted many aspects of reading and writing instruction, including the way that students are taught traditional “sight words.”

In the past we often told students that they had to just memorize these high frequency words. We would try to get students to focus on the “whole word,” looking at its shape, length, etc. in order to learn the word. But there is significant evidence to show that this doesn’t work for a lot of kids. Research indicates that successful readers use phonics and “orthographic mapping” to learn new words – connecting sounds (the phonemes) to the letters (the graphemes) in the word. They permanently store the connected sounds and letters to instantly recognize the words. These words then become actual sight words.

Many of the high frequency words from lists, such as Dolch, are words that follow normal phonemic rules. Rather than memorizing the whole word, the words can be taught as part of phonics lessons. For example, the word “did” can be included when learning other short i cvc words.

There are, however, some words on the Dolch list that don’t fully follow phonetic patterns. These words are often called heart words – meaning that there is one (or more) part of the word that has a tricky part that you have to learn by heart.

We have recently published some Heart Words Clicker Sets on LearningGrids. The sets, which include Word Banks, Talk Sets, and Matching Sets, focus on the Dolch list of heart words and are broken down into eight groups, allowing you to focus on a smaller set of words at time.

Let’s look at how the different types of Clicker Sets can be used.

Word Banks and Clicker Document

The Word Banks can be used effectively with the Clicker Document to introduce students to the different groups of heart words.

• Send a word from the Word Bank to the Document.
• Get students to say the word with you.
• Ask students to use the word in a sentence (understanding the meaning of the word is an important part of the orthographic mapping process).
• Send the word again and this time get students to tap out the sounds in the word.
• Ask them to say the phonemes in the words – s-ĕ-d.
• Ask them what sound they hear at the beginning and what letter we use for that sound – highlight the s in green.
• Ask them what sound they hear at the end and what letter we use for that sound – highlight the d in green.
• Explain how that leaves us with the middle sound which is ĕ, but because this is a heart word, it has a tricky part that we have learn by heart –highlight the ai in red.
• Open the onscreen keyboard and write out the word again. Have students say the letters with you.

Talk and Matching Sets

Once you have introduced all the words from the Word Bank, students can then use the Talk and Matching Sets to consolidate their understanding of the words.

With the Talk Set, students can use it as a normal Listen and Say activity – where they click on the word to hear it and then they record themselves saying it. But to really engage in the orthographic process, get students to record themselves saying the word, using the word in a sentence, and breaking the word into its parts – both the sounds and the letters.

The Matching Set is designed as a reinforcement activity or quick assessment to see if students can recognize the words. They click on the speaker to hear a word and then choose the written word to match the sound.  

Be sure to visit LearningGrids for other Clicker resources focusing on Sounds & Letters.

Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a celebration of life and death and takes place on November 1st and 2nd each year in Mexico. The holiday has roots back to rituals honouring the dead in Ancient Mesoamerica.

In our recent Mexico Clicker Sets on LearningGrids, we explore this tradition, as well as other cultural and geographical features of the country. The collection of resources includes Read a Book and Read It Yourself Clicker Books and a range of related speaking and writing activities.

Depending on the needed level of support, children can use the Sentence Set, Connect Set, or Word Bank to help them write about Mexico.

Or you can provide children with an alternative means of expression by using the Talk Set, where they can record information about Mexico. Don’t forget that you can increase the number of recorders for each picture to allow children to record their ideas in bite-sized chunks. They can then listen to all their recordings on the start page – great for class presentations!

Be sure to visit LearningGrids for more Mexico resources, including a Word Bank and Clicker Board about the ancient Mayan site Chichén Itzá.

Most of us write differently depending on what we are writing and, importantly, who we are writing for. While we regularly give children different writing tasks to develop their writing skills and to expose them to different genres, too often the only audience for their writing is their teacher. A recent Edutopia article discussed how giving children an authentic audience for their work can increase motivation and creativity. The article made me think about ways that Clicker could be used to support children in writing for different audiences.

Sharing work with other classes is an easy way to give children a purpose for their writing. Get your students to create Clicker Books for younger children. They can create non-fiction books or write imaginative stories that can be saved to a digital reading corner. The speech support built into Clicker will make the stories accessible to the younger readers. To further strengthen the sense of audience, your students could read the books to the other children, either in person or using the sound recorder in Clicker.

Writing to school governors or local council officials can be a great way for children to connect with persuasive writing. Let students come up with topics that are relevant to them, such as making improvements to the school playground or adding a cycle lane to town streets, and then get them to write to the appropriate school or community leaders. Our Persuasion Planner and Writing Frame provide support for students as they create their persuasive arguments.

students’ own classmates can also be a highly motivating audience. Have them become class experts on a topic and then share their work with the rest of the class – through classroom displays or in oral presentations to the class. With Clicker Board, students can create digital posters to use as part of their presentations. For children who are less confident presenting to an audience, they can use a Talk Set to pre-record their presentation and then play the recordings to the class.

For an even larger audience, get your students to submit their work to national (and global) showcases and competitions such as our Summer Story Share. The Clicker Summer Story Share is an opportunity for elementary students to tell us a story that excites and inspires them. The theme for this year is: “If I could go anywhere…” To help write or tell their stories, students can have unlimited home access to Clicker throughout the summer break. We’ll be showcasing their wonderful stories online, for the whole world to enjoy!

Have you had a chance to look at all the Clicker resources on LearningGrids about the Moon?

With the Phases of the Moon sets, children can read, write and talk about the main phases of the lunar cycle. The Clicker Board can be used as an introductory activity or as a way for children to demonstrate their understanding at the end of the topic. Children could even create a Moon journal – Clicker’s painting tools are perfect for illustrating the different phases of the Moon.

There is also a great group of Clicker resources to help children learn about the Apollo 11 Moon landing. These Moon Landing sets include a comprehensive Clicker Book covering the events and the people involved, as well as a simplified Read It Yourself version. A range of writing activities, such as the Connect set, allow children to write about the mission to the Moon and its historical significance.

For early readers and writers, the recent Day and Night sets help them think about differences between daytime and night-time activities and events – and the changes in the sky. The Talk Set gives all children, including struggling writers, the opportunity to record their thoughts on the topic.

Visit LearningGrids for other resources about the solar system or changes at night.

One of my favourite books to read with my classes was always Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. It is a great read-aloud book and perfect for more independent students to tackle on their own. On LearningGrids, we have published a series of Clicker activities to help learners examine the book more closely.

There are Word Banks for writing a synopsis of the story or to write about key elements in the novel. students can use Clicker Boards to carry out a Character Study or to explore the theme of Friendship. The Connect Set, Word Definitions, helps learners focus on interesting vocabulary from the book – matching the words to their definitions and then using the new vocabulary in different contexts.

Charlotte’s Web is also great as a stimulus for other genres of writing. A Famous Pig – Report offers starters and vocabulary to help students to write a news report about Wilbur and the discovery of the messages in the web. Using the Saving Wilbur – Persuasive Writing Frame, students can write a letter to try to persuade Mr. Arable to spare the life of Wilbur.

To go along with the Charlotte’s Web resources, we have also published new book review sets, including a Talk Set which students can use to prepare an oral report – retelling the story or explaining why they like or dislike it. We have also created Book and Film Comparison Clicker Boards to compare and contrast the written story with its filmed version.

Be sure to check out the Literature section on LearningGrids for many other resources to encourage students’ active engagement with texts.

One of the many things the pandemic has done is to reinforce the importance of the social and emotional well-being of children, and the role that social and emotional learning (SEL) must play in schools alongside academic learning. We have recently published more SEL Clicker resources on LearningGrids, to help support the areas of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationships and decision-making.

Getting children to slow down and be mindful about what is happening in the present moment helps with all different aspects of their social and emotional well-being. Our Mindful Walk sets include a simple story about what a child sees, hears, smells and feels on a walk. Children could then take their own walk and use the Clicker Board or Talk Set to note observations from their walk.

Let’s get learners to celebrate their successes. Children can write or record affirmations with the Positive Self-Talk Connect and Talk Sets or use the My Strengths Clicker Board or Word Bank to write about positive personality traits, social skills, achievements or talents.

The Rose, Thorn, Bud sets give learners a chance to reflect on positive moments (roses), but also to think about challenges or areas where they may need support (thorns) and new ideas they would like to explore (buds).

When there are difficult issues that they need to tackle, children can use the decision-making planners and writing frames to help resolve them – considering both the positive and negative outcomes of their possible resolutions.

Be sure to visit LearningGrids for lots of other SEL Clicker Sets.

Have you met the Alphabet Animals, Clicker’s newest characters on LearningGrids? These colorful creatures have been designed to help children learn the letters of the alphabet, develop an understanding of alliteration, and explore the initial sounds in words.

In Alphabet Animals – Read a Book, learners are introduced to Annie ant, Desmond dolphin, Gary goose and the other 23 characters. Additional Connect and Custom Sets, including Alphabet Animals – Who Can and Alphabet Animals – Presents, start to develop children’s ability to distinguish between different initial sounds in words.

Each animal character, such as Benny badger, also has their own book so that your class can find out what the animal likes, has and can do. All the Clicker Books have recorded speech and are supported by speaking and writing activities to explore the particular letter/sound and to help write alliterative sentences.

Visit LearningGrids to find the full range of Alphabet Animal resources. And let these fun Clicker characters give your learners a strong foundation for reading and writing!