ATRCs Stock New Crick Software

Eden Melmed, AT Specialist, New Castle County ATRC

Crick Software promotes the inclusion of children of all abilities by creating flexible products that teachers can tailor to the needs of individual students. Most products have the option of switch access for users with a disability who are unable to use a mouse or keyboard. Many of Crick Software’s educational computer programs have recently been added to the Assistive Technology Resource Center (ATRC) inventories in each county.

Clicker ($199) combines a talking word processor with Clicker Grids, a point and click writing scaffold that provides students with banks of words, phrases, and pictures. It is designed for students of all ability levels and has a wide range of accessibility options for users who cannot use a mouse or keyboard.

Using the Clicker program, teachers can create customized on-screen keyboard grids with letters, words, phrases, or pictures. Students can then use these word banks to assist in their writing. When they click on a word or picture in the grid, the word is entered in the word processor. Users can also type text into the word processor using the keyboard. Text is read aloud by letter, word, or sentence as it is entered. The program also works with a touch screen or switch.

Wordbar ($149) is a toolbar that sits along the bottom of the computer screen to give instant point-and-click access to an unlimited number of words and phrases. Once clicked, the word or phrase is sent to the word processor, spreadsheet, or database that is currently being used.

Words can be organized into groups either alphabetically or under topic headings. Wordbar has built-in speech so users can hear words or phrases before they write.

Penfriend ($149) is a talking word prediction tool that helps students who have spelling difficulties, dyslexia, or who are very slow keyboard users. Penfriend has a floating window that works alongside any word processor and most other software. Penfriend predicts the words that the user is most likely to type, using a variety of knowledge including English grammar, frequently used words, and a learned knowledge of the user’s personal writing style. As the user starts typing, Penfriend displays a list of words beginning with the letters entered. The most likely words appear at the top of the list. A single click on the desired word enters the whole word into the word processor.

The Find Out & Write About series and Planet Wobble sets are multimedia Clicker activities. Find Out & Write About lets students research information independently and then write about it using Clicker grids. Each CD ($49) contains an interactive talking book of non-fiction text, provided at two or three levels of difficulty, which students can read or listen to. Each page of the book contains a link to a Clicker writing grid that relates directly to that page, so students can write about the information they have just learned. CDs available include: Animals of Cold Lands, Animals of Hot Lands, Dinosaurs, Explorers, Life Cycles, and The Ancient Egyptians.

Planet Wobble is an exciting and innovative series of materials for early readers. Each set ($59) has three stories and includes a CD as well as three printed books. These animated Clicker talking books and related on-screen activities are provided at three levels of difficulty. Some of the activities include matching, sentence construction, recognition of words, questions and comprehension, writing stories and making books.

For more information about these and other Crick Software products, contact your local ATRC or visit www.cricksoft.com/us.

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