Supershark, the automatic progression course

Supershark follows the 'Wordshark' course, (view pdf of content) with built-in automatic progression. Supershark takes the students through the Wordshark course, moving them on automatically through the units of work and games - at their own pace. This progression has been tested in a wide variety of schools.  Supershark is available to students at all times irrespective of any set work.

This student has been placed at 'Unit 6 HFW' and the word list name is 'Revise TW: and the to is of

Course content & teaching notes

As stated the Supershark course is based on the Wordshark units / lists. The course is divided into 44 Units  each consisting of 4 to 8 lists (average 6).  The teaching notes are suggestions of what you might like to communicate to your students.

To download or view the PDF documents for Course Summary, Complete Word Lists or Teaching Notes click on the headers or images in the table below: 

Course Summary	Complete Word Lists	Word Lists including Teaching Notes

The games

On completion of the  Shark Challenge   students are placed at one of the Wordshark course Units to start their journey.  Students move through cycles of games, opening up any available games tabs to play the games.

The Supershark course is structured to keep students focused and as such, the games selection is built up slowly. For example, when starting a new word list - the first set of games to choose from will only be for reading and blending. The second game will often be a choice of just 1 or 2 games - ‘pattern’ and possibly ‘helicopter’  The third will bring in a much wider choice and so on.  

The games tabs include ‘Blend, Read, Segment, Spell, Patterns, Syllables, Sentences, Alphabet’ - but depending on the list and games cycle, not all will be present all the time. After every third game a reward game is offered.

Spelling test

The 6th game of the cycle is one of the 3 spelling ‘check/test’ games -

Spell check, Maze spell check, Moving spell check .  Students with 85% success or above move on to the next list but are first offered to repeat the game if they want to improve their score/time for extra points.
With a new list the games cycle starts again.
Spelling progress reports are based on the success in spelling check games.

Resetting the level in Supershark - this can be done at any time

1. Select the 'Set Work' tab from the top menu bar
   
2. Select 'Change Level - Supershark' (see image above)
   
3. Select the student required by ‘ticking’ the box to the right of their name
   
4. ‘Wordshark Course’ will appear on the right-hand panel; select ‘Next step’ (lower right on screen)
   
5. The list of units will appear on the left hand panel – Scroll down till you see ‘CURRENT’ beside a Unit to see the present position. Click on the new required unit – later or earlier in the course
   
6. This will become highlighted in grey, and the word lists in this unit are shown on the right hand side
7. Click 'Submit' (lower right on screen)
8. When prompted to reset the starting point, click ‘Yes’
9. The next screen will confirm, in green 'Reset starting point for Supershark details updated successfully' . You can now choose to make changes for other students too if you like.
   

Early exit from a list for high achievers

Students can make an early exit and move to the next list if they choose a spelling test game in the 3rd 4th or 5th game and get 100%. These games all have the word 'check' in their name i.e. Spell check, Maze spell check, Moving spell check.

Students with poor results

Students with poor results   get lots more practice with the list – with the above games cycles repeated - but they now only ever need a minimum score of 85% spelling to move on. If this is not achieved (with a maximum of 18 games) they are automatically moved on – but an email is sent to the teacher. These students are highly likely to need teacher help and a reset of Unit to an easier one.  Conversely, those that are finding lists too easy can be reset to a later Unit (see button under ‘Set work’ in the teacher’s main menu).

Poor spelling test results alert the teacher.

At the end of each Unit there is a 20-word spelling test for the whole Unit. At the end of 3 Units there is a test of 12 words drawn from all lists to date. 

Completion of the Supershark Course

Students move to a 'Practice after Supershark'; a miscellany of moderately hard words to read and spell. 

• Related Articles

• Teaching Notes for the 'Wordshark' Course

  Short explanation of what teaching notes cover Units 1-4 matching speech to written symbols The teaching notes include different approaches and may well open doors less often mentioned. This gives them great potential value for working with older ...

• 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 - ...

• All the courses & word lists (Inc. course summaries)

  View course content in PDFs - click on the blue (links) below: Course Summary PDF shows list titles and examples of what is in each list Full PDF shows titles plus every word list Teaching Notes Wordshark Wordshark Course Summary Wordshark Course ...

• Where can I find how much time a student has spent using Wordshark

  Where can I see how much time a pupil has played Wordshark Online? Total Game Play Time - accessed via the administrator/teacher 'My Dashboard'. Under 'Student Activity' select 'View' next to a student to see their total game play time for all ...

• Wordshark for specific uses

  For a spelling lesson on an IWB Introduce a spelling rule on the IWB (finding the relevant list in Wordshark using 'Search'). You might like to create a teacher account for teachers to use on IWBs with no student records in so that if the computer is ...