How visualisers support improved literacy skills

Sponsored: The HUE HD Pro is the consummate multi-tasker and a flexible classroom companion you can always rely on to support instruction and increase engagement, writes John Dabell

Teacher-friendly and easy-to-use, a HUE camera can transform teaching and learning, facilitating innovative, modern teaching methods right across the curriculum.

Here are some examples of how to use your visualiser for improving literacy skills:

Shared reading

It’s not always easy to get hold of the right text in digital form and you might only have one hard copy of a book in your library. With a HUE camera, you can easily share text with your class and students can access any book, almost as if they had their own copy.

Modelling

A visualiser can vastly improve the quality of modelling by enabling teachers to show a wide range of high-quality models in any subject. By sharing your writing with a class, you are helping to develop a culture of self-assessment and independent reflection.

You can model answers to test questions from start to finish as well as what makes a robust response. You can go through a series of questions that award different marks and apply the BUG method to all questions (box the command word, underline key ideas to focus on, glance over the question to make sure you include everything).

You can record movie footage of WAGOLL and allow your pupils to copy, whilst you walk around the class providing support. Carefully guided scaffolded practice provides pupils with the opportunity to practice and develop mastery.

Annotating

The camera allows you to annotate literary texts to the whole class ‘in the moment’ showing your thought processes and highlighting important passages directly over the book. This is extremely beneficial because pupils can see your thinking unfurl rather than just looking at a pre-annotated text. It also allows the whole class to be engaged in the process and contribute their own thoughts and ideas to the annotation.

Reviewing and feedback

A HUE HD Pro has tremendous potential for pupils to instantly share and explain as well as give or receive feedback on written work. Work can remain anonymous or it can be shared publicly and improved through collective editing. Reviewing together promotes interaction and deeper learning conversations whilst improving focus.

When you spot a pupil’s work that stands out, you can place it under the camera within seconds and analyse what is excellent or where a misconception has occurred. Missing punctuation, spelling mistakes and the need for more adventurous vocabulary are easily highlighted giving pupils immediate feedback and live differentiation/stretch/support.

Improve note-taking skills

Your HUE HD Pro is the perfect sidekick for sharing top tips as to how to take notes. Note-taking is a skill that can help children do well in all their schoolwork – everything from taking tests to researching a website. Model what to do and share with children the skills they need to get the maximum potential from their note-taking.

Hone handwriting

Everyone needs to brush up on their penmanship and visualisers can help to improve handwriting formation as children can see the finer details of writing as it’s being written. Zoom in on your own handwriting to share how to hold a pen and how to form individual letters and words.

Improve presentation skills

A document camera is part of the classroom community and not just for teacher use. It can be used by pupils as a presentational tool to craft their self-expression and they can become teachers giving them valuable opportunities to stand up and talk.

Punchy punctuation

Your HUE HD Pro is the ideal tool for getting a laser-sharp focus on the proper use of punctuation. Pupils can be given ‘faulty’ sentences to correct and decide where punctuation is missing or is superfluous. Create and share practice exercises and discuss how the same sentence can be punctuated in half a dozen different ways.

Model dictionary/thesaurus skills

Model sophisticated word use to promote word consciousness and vocabulary growth by sharing different types of dictionaries. Place a dictionary under the camera and pupils can be shown how to locate words efficiently, understand their meaning and learn to spell correctly.


HUE cameras are very popular across the education sector for classroom teaching, remote and blended learning, online tutoring, homeschooling, library makerspaces and summer camps. Our mission is to offer a range of products which inspire creative learning, work and play. They are easy-to-use, affordable and perfect for use in the classroom, at home or in the office. At only £49.95 + VAT you can afford a HUE HD Pro in every classroom.

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