‘Free Play’ option
Free Play means that students can access:
- any list
- any game
- at any time
By default, it’s switched ‘off’, but you can choose to allow it as it opens up greater freedom compared to Automatic Progression or Set Work.
6 ways to use Free Play
- Used wisely, it can take the place of Set work in certain circumstances.
- 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).
- Equally for those handful of students who are truly ‘TEST ADVERSE’ this may be a lifeline.
- 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.
- 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.
- Free Play granted in the HOLIDAYS can give freedom to explore the full availability of word lists.
How to allow Free Play
