FREE PLAY - Giving students access to different courses

FREE PLAY - Giving students access to different courses

What is 'Free Play' and who can access it? 

You as a teacher have 'Free Play': meaning you can access any list, any game and at any time.

Your students, in contrast have access only to their place in Supershark and to any work you might have set them which is very good unless you want to open up greater freedom.

Notes
See further below for reasons why you might want to grant Free Play. [Generally, do not grant it unless there is a reason]

How to allow Free Play 

Go to Groups & Users, open the arrow on the right of your group and click the Free Play slider to ON,  for the whole group or for individuals.


You may well want to restrict which courses are available, as the default is for all to be ticked. Click on More/ Select Courses


Your students will need help at first to find desirable lists. Firstly they will need to click on the grey Switch button and may then to select the relevant course if more than one has been ticked for Free Play.


 

6 example reasons for allowing Free Play

  1. Used wisely, it can take the place of Set work in certain circumstances.
  2. For students that you can trust to find their way around the different lists, Free Play may be valuable, especially SECONDARY AGE STUDENTS who may well want to work on reading and vocabulary without having to spell the words. (Supershark and Set Work both ensure that spelling tests are included at regular intervals). Grant them access to the Secondary School Subject Lists course. The important games are the reading ones and the sentence game and the spelling games (optional).
  3. Equally for those handful of students who are truly ‘TEST ADVERSE’ this may be a lifeline.
  4. If you actively teach a spelling pattern or rule, you might help your students to navigate to the relevant lists to practise rather than set them as work. This is especially true for TUTORS  who might find a suitable list in the lesson and work on it with the student signed on, then leave them on that list for homework without actually going via the Set Work route.
  5. For EAL: when a student has no English or very little, Free Play can be especially useful. Firstly set up your student to have access just to the Everyday Vocabulary course. They can then dip into any of the topics: see the words, hear them, see a photo and see and hear their phonic breakdown. Very important games for learning vocabulary include Learn vocab, Say word, and all the Sentence games.
  6. Free Play granted in the HOLIDAYS can give freedom to explore the full availability of word lists.

For those with little or no English (PDF)

You can give students access to all games and lists in the Everyday Vocabulary course. 

How to see reports for Free Play

Go to the Student Progress tab and select the Group (1) and Student (2) (note a 'group report for 'ALL' students is only available for Supershark NOT Free Play).

Choose the relevant Course (3) that they have been using in Free Play, not Supershark (note you can only choose one course at a time).

Select the Game Play Report (4) - this will identify if any spelling test games (the ones with ‘check’ in their title) have been played.  If no spell check games have been played the Unit Report (4) or Word List Report (4) will say 'no reports'.  (note if a student has not used the program at all you will get a pop up to say 'no record of work for this student')

Finally, choose Duration (5) for the time period you wish to view:



Remember you can view, download or print the report summary:


Click on the following link to view article on "Student progress reports for Supershark (& Free Play)"

    • Related Articles

    • When to use Set Work and Free Play

      What are the benefits of 'setting work' vs 'automatic progression'? Many schools only use Wordshark in the automatic progression mode (AP/Supershark). Why not try exploring the Set Work option (using published lists or creating their own word lists). ...

    • Student progress reports for Supershark (& Free Play)

      Placement and progress in Supershark All students are given the baseline test (Shark Challenge) by default when they first log into the program, to find the appropriate Unit of work (out of 44 Units) to start at. They are then placed in Supershark - ...

    • How to View Courses & Word lists 'onscreen'

      Viewing other courses & word lists As a teacher you have access to all the courses and lists - these are listed below, or for more information: Courses and Lists Nat.Curriculum 2014 England: spellings Follows the English Government’s spellings for ...

    • Simple method to add a student and a group

      All students in Wordshark are allocated into 'Groups', as covered in the set-up guides For school subscriptions if you haven't already set up your group/s, you will need to do this before adding your students. Create a Group First you need to create ...

    • Setting work using published courses

      Important facts about setting work When setting work for your students, you can choose from a total of 5 courses (in total, giving you around 10,000 words and sentences), or you can choose your own lists: Nat.Curriculum 2014 England: spellings ...

    Still need help?

    Complete our automated Contact Form or email support@wordshark.co.uk with your query.
    We will get back to you as soon as we can.