Elyse Reynolds and Taylor Phu are assistive technology specialists for Lake Washington School District, a district of 32 elementary schools outside Seattle.

They recently shared with us the impact that Clicker has had on inclusive education across the district, and the steps they took to ensure that the tool was embedded successfully in every setting.

The mission of Lake Washington School District

The district is committed to the vision that “every student will graduate prepared to lead a rewarding, responsible life as a contributing member of our community and greater society.”

To support this goal, staff prioritize equitable and inclusive education, ensuring all students have access to the tools and opportunities they need to succeed. The district’s commitment to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) underpins its approach, guiding curriculum development and shaping decisions about how best to support every child.

How Clicker supports the mission of universal inclusion

The district chose Clicker because of its ability to adapt easily to the wide range of needs present in every classroom.

This flexibility was a key factor in its adoption, with Clicker supporting students across all three tiers of the district’s Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework.

In practice, this meant that within a single classroom, students could engage in the same activity in different ways: some typing independently with word prediction, others using Sentence Sets, and some accessing content through switch devices.

The range of ready-made Clicker activities and writing scaffolds available on LearningGrids, alongside the ability to customize these or quickly create personalized resources from scratch, also meant that this support could be in place regardless of the topic being studied.

By enabling all students to participate alongside their peers using a shared tool, Clicker reflects the district’s commitment to Universal Design for Learning and has helped create a more inclusive environment where all students can succeed together.

Sharing resources for district-wide adoption

Using Clicker across a whole district, and across all three tiers of support, meant that a lot of different staff, and paraprofessionals in particular, needed to be confident using the software.

To make Clicker easy for paraprofessionals to adopt, Taylor and Elyse regularly shared newsletters featuring relevant LearningGrids resources, providing a clear and approachable starting point.

This collaboration didn't stop at Taylor and Elyse. Once staff across the district understood the benefits of Clicker, they were able to share and help others.

Building on the newsletters that they had been sending, a speech and language pathologist later shared their own guide ahead of Black History Month, which explained how resources on the Montgomery Bus Boycott could be used to help AAC users engage with the content.

Another paraprofessional who worked with multilingual learners started printing resources she had made for her students and leaving extra copies for any other member of staff who might need them.

This collaboration and knowledge sharing between staff helped ensure that Clicker was embedded and that staff across the district were able to use it effectively with students.

Success at all levels of need

Literacy and curriculum participation for non-speaking students

High-quality literacy instruction for all is a key commitment for the district. Often, when looking at the curriculum, Taylor and Elyse would ask the question, “How could this work for someone who is non-speaking?”

They found that Clicker provided the answer, and with very little work to change the original resources, their AAC users had opportunities to demonstrate their understanding and participate alongside their peers.

Effective strategies for supporting multilingual learners

MLL teachers saw how well Clicker aligned with strategies they were already using to support their learners. One teacher was so impressed by the software that they created a Clicker-first workflow to go alongside the gen ed curriculum.

This foundation made it possible to provide lesson activities that kept content challenging while making it completely accessible, enabling students to work independently in gen ed classes where they had previously relied heavily on adult support.

Unlocking engagement for reluctant writers

Because Clicker works across all tiers of support, it captured learners whose needs might otherwise have gone unnoticed. Rather than waiting for a plan or label, students who didn’t qualify for structured interventions but needed a boost in confidence or help getting started could access tools that helped them engage and succeed.

For some students, having access to simple, universally-available features was the difference between avoiding writing altogether and finally participating meaningfully.

How they knew they had succeeded

Taylor and Elyse were the original champions for Clicker at Lake Washington. But when they saw that it was being used across the district by people they had never met or trained, they knew it was a success.

By choosing a tool that could be adapted to support a wide range of needs, Lake Washington School District reinforced its commitment to Universal Design for Learning and created a truly inclusive learning environment - where every child has the tools they need to succeed.

You can learn more about the impact of Clicker at Lake Wahington by watching our full webinar with Taylor and Elyse.

They expand on the specific steps they took to embed Clicker and the impact on learners, as well as:

• The role that the included training, technical support, and reliability of the software played in the successful implementation.
• Success stories from students and staff, including videos, examples of student work, and classroom recordings

If you’d like to learn more about Clicker, schedule a free Clicker discovery call.