A small group of children who have SEN level 3 or above with difficulties in literacy used Clicker 4. We had created a series of grids which the children use to record the key points of our history topics.

Clicker reads text to the children, either as a word on a grid, a highlighted choice of words or a complete sentence when they have inserted the full stop. This allows the children to build sentences quite independently, despite having major difficulties with reading and writing. It also builds their image of themselves as readers and writers, an essential step on the path to becoming literate.

The children soon picked up how to use the grids and get the text to speak. The grids can be saved so they are linked, enabling the children to easily click through the grids when they are ready to move on to the next page. Each grid allowed the children to answer one of the history key questions from my medium term plans.

The children saved their work as pages. They were then able to turn their work into a talking book.

How to Create a Talking Book

To create a talking book using Clicker 4, click Make a Clicker Grid and then select a template from the Book Making tab. Hold down shift and click into the boxes to insert text and pictures onto the page. Save the pages with the same name and increasing numbers to ensure they are linked. e.g Fire1, Fire2 etc.

The bookmaking grids don't work in the same way as the other grids, as they don't have a word grid. The children either type into them directly, which really misses the point of using Clicker, or text can be created using a sentence grid, saved and then inserted into a book grid. This requires more adult intervention initially.

The completed books showed far greater understanding of the history topic than I expected these children to have. Again, ICT was a great motivator, and reduced the pressure of recording by hand. This enabled the children to show what they understood about the topic much more effectively.

I had not used Clicker 4 before beginning this project. Initially I had some problems creating my own linking grids, but with practice this becomes quite easy. Adapting existing grids to meet your learning objectives can be easier than starting from scratch, particularly if you are short of time or not yet confident with Clicker.

Clicker is an invaluable tool to support the struggling writer. Children need minimal literacy skills to make use of the program. During another lesson I watched a child with very limited skills write a description of Floppy using a Clicker grid. This child is unable to produce a sentence of hand written text carrying meaning. However, with a quick demonstration of how to use the grid, he quickly felt confident and produced several sentences independently.

The dyslexic children we have worked with have often shown good skills in ICT. Several children have used the grids with minimal instruction and then little support. Their work looks good and it is far easier for them to record their learning. They are also far more independent writers using this software.

Clicker is an excellent piece of software to promote inclusion of all children in whole class work. Training up LSAs in Clicker enables them to effectively support children's recording in a variety of lessons. Using Clicker on laptops in the classroom is an effective means of including children with literacy difficulties.

I can't believe we did not begin to use Clicker earlier! It has made a real difference to my ability to effectively include all children in literacy based activities. We are now hoping to invest in another laptop to make more use of Clicker as part of our regular literacy lessons and to support children's recording in other lessons.

Most of our teaching staff, including our teaching assistants, have had training in using Clicker and it is becoming one of our most used pieces of software. It is also excellent value. Once Clicker has been purchased each additional licence only costs £10 and there are lots of additional grids available on the Clicker website which are easy to download. If you haven't used Clicker yet - try it!