Clicker Docs

Suitable for ages - Primary School Apps (5-7 Years)

Subjects & Topics - Apps for College Students
Teaching Resources
English / Literacy
Special Education
Communication Skills

Great for - Communication Skills
Organisational and Productivity Skills

Publisher - Crick Software

• Speech feedback capability.
• Word prediction feature.
• Voice Notes function.
• Picture support integration.
• Mind-mapping tools included.
• Topic-specific Sentence Sets, Connect Sets, and Word Banks.

Clicker is the complete writing solution for the elementary classroom, providing every student with just the right level of support and challenge.

Clicker Docs is a great resource to use with any child who is developing their writing skills and is particularly suitable for those who have dyslexia or are reluctant writers.  My own 8 year old is a reluctant writer and she delighted in writing and listening back to her own story using the app.  She found it particularly useful to review and check her writing by herself and the option to change the appearance of the page made it more engaging for her than using a conventional word processing program. She is keen to use the app again to investigate using some of the other LearningGrids resources which link to the topics she is exploring at school.

There is enough information inside the app and potential for using outside content to spark creativity. Clicker Docs has access to 'Word Banks' which are from the resources site, LearningGrids, in order to keep the learner stimulated with content. Furthermore, it is possible to copy and paste text from outside the app and other browsers and to create personalised word banks from there. I can imagine taking a literary text and copy-pasting it into the app in order to analyse the sentence structure and vocabulary.

The landing site has the appearance of a child friendly word processing program with a blank page and keyboard and is quite simple to use.  However there are a range of features and settings for which children would need adult guidance, at least initially.

The keyboard has a simple layout and when the shift key is pressed all the keys change to lower or upper case.  It is possible to switch between the keyboard and word banks which help the children with their writing.  Users can create their own word banks, use any saved in Dropbox or access Crick Software's own word banks. To access these grids the user needs to register for free on the website but is then able to use a full range of word banks which relate to various topics from story settings to Ancient Greece. This feature makes it particularly useful for KS2 children who are writing about a particular curriculum topic or need to practice writing in a particular genre or extend their use of adjectives, for example. These topic based grids can be used immediately but it is also possible to add additional words or remove sets of words from the grid as required.

Overall the Clicker Docs is a user friendly app which can be adapted to the needs of a wide range of learners to enhance their writing skills.  It has lots of different options and features which can take quite a while to explore. The app is comparatively quite expensive but it can be used for many years and I have yet to find anything other writing app with as many features or supporting materials available.

We thoroughly enjoyed the app and as with Click Sentences, the app receives the highest EAS Rating of 5 stars. The apps are academically relevant, engaging have learners really getting into writing and looking deep within text. The design is clean and the apps are very functional. This is truly an educational app of quality.