The Dakota’s Adventures For Clicker 5 CD contains seventeen original books that are presented at two reading levels for students who have different reading abilities. Once the original stories have been read or listened to there are a number of additional supporting activities designed to improve the student’s literacy skills.

Let’s take a look at one of the books and supporting activities in the series. Note, the books contain high quality close up photographs and videos to bring the story content home to the student. This set of activities is also available in its entirety within the Clicker 5/Goodies section of our website. We are providing this entire set of activities to you free of charge so that you can get a sense of the quality and quantity of activities available in this collection.
 

The activity opens up with an outer book cover and the title of the book is automatically read to the student. The student can then click on the next page arrow to move inward into the book’s contents.
 

Upon entering into the book, the student is presented with several options. They can read the story first (i.e. at a second grade reading level) or they may option for the Easy Version of the book.

If they choose to Read The Story they will read about or listen to Dakota having a close encounter and meeting with a six inch wide crab.
 

On this page, the student has watched a short video of the interaction between Dakota and the crab. You can see the standard text that is displayed. Students can click on the “bullhorn” to listen to the story if they like.

If students option for the Easy Version, the same video will be played on the corresponding page of the second book but the text is simplified as you can see on the screenshot below.
 

Once the student has read or listened to the story as many times as they like, they then have the option to move on to a wide variety of supporting activities which are designed to improve their literacy skills and comprehension.
 

The screenshot above provides you with a view of the different activity options that a student can choose from. If they click on the Writing cell, they are presented with these writing options.
 

Using Clicker Writer and other capabilities of Clicker 5 students have a choice of various formats and styles to write in. In some cases they are simply copying a sentence that has been presented to them from the book. In other cases they are creatively writing their own sentences and retelling the story.

If they choose Spelling as an option, they are first presented with four different spelling options or subfolders. In the screenshot below you can see that the student has been asked to spell the word “nose” and they are presented with the letters in a scrambled order.

If they are not sure they can click on the cell with the letter “i” and the word will be displayed to them for their verification.
 

In the Reading section students are represented a picture of Dakota or the Crab along with three words. They are asked to listen to a word being read aloud and then find it amongst the three choices. If they choose correctly they receive auditory feedback and can move onto the next page. If they choose incorrectly they will hear the incorrect word read aloud and then be asked to find the word that has been read out loud initially again.

Some students might want to create their own scene and then write about it. The Dakota and the Crab unit provides students with that opportunity via the “Make A Scene” option. First students can move their mouse arrow around the screen and put different options onto an ocean background.

Then they can click on the Write icon and write their own sentences using the sentence fragments in the pop-up grid or they can write their own sentence in the textbox provided.

Educators might also want to see how the student’s comprehension is in regards to the subject matter that has been presented to them via the reading books and writing exercises. If that is the case the Dakota And The Crab unit provides educators two methods for testing comprehension.

Students can be instructed to answer a series of questions or educators may want to see if students can put the story’s pictures back together in a sequence that makes sense. In the “Reorder the Sequence” activity students are asked to put both pictures and the appropriate joining sentence in the correct order so as to retell the story.

Lastly, students also have the opportunity to play a game. In this unit the game is called “Odd One Out”.

Students are presented with a beach scene and a number of different objects. The student has the opportunity to then click on each object and indicate whether it is an object that you would normally find at the beach or not. You can see in this case that the student has already marked the elephant as “NO” and the speedboat as “YES”.

Each of the seventeen units within this collection is designed in a similar fashion. Activities will vary slightly by unit. Note: some units may have a few more activities than others dependent upon the subject matter and its complexity. In total there are approximately two hundred activities in the collection.

Also if you are wondering what Dakota encounters or visits. The answer to that question includes but is not limited to: starfish, a killdeer, a plover and other inhabitants along the beach. She also visits locations such as Glacier National Park, The Little Big Horn battle site, The Crazy Horse Memorial, Mount Rushmore, and The Tennessee Aquarium on her road trip across the country. Then when she reaches her new home on the island of St. Kitts in the West Indies, Dakota and her exploration/travel partners explore the island’s countryside and nearby town through three additional travel books.