ClozePro

Product Description
With ClozePro the teacher can create cloze procedure activities to be used onscreen or in a printout form. It contains many ready-made activities that support Literacy and Numeracy throughout the Key Stage. However, with little effort most teachers would be able to create sophisticated activities to enhance their work in the classroom. The teacher can use single words with letters missing or use more difficult pieces of text with any number of words missing. Pictures can be included in the text and linked to words in the grids. Text and pictures can be accessed from a library on the CD-ROM, from the teacher’s own resources or from the Internet. Additional words called ‘distracters’ can be added to the grids to enable the children to select the word that they feel is most appropriate. The program comes with Microsoft Text-to-Speech, enabling words and whole pieces of text to be heard.
The program opens with three options. It offers a ‘Quick Tour’, which I would recommend using to familiarise the teacher with the features of the software. The other two options are to ‘Open an Activity’ and ‘Create an Activity’. With the CD-ROM comes a primary and a secondary folder containing many activities, which could support teaching and learning in the classroom. By choosing to Create an Activity, the teacher can produce activities that specifically match the work in that class.

When the program is used in Run mode, the buttons make it easy for most children to work unaided. There is a report section that tracks the progress of users. An exciting option for Special Needs children is that by accessing Options the teacher can set up the program to run using switches as a mouse alternative.

Supporting Documentation
The program comes with a single sheet Quick Start Guide and a more detailed User Guide booklet. Both are very useful and easy to understand. The program automatically starts when the CD-ROM is put in the drive and onscreen instructions are given for its installation. It is recommended that teachers use the onscreen Quick Tour, which gives a short explanation of the program possibilities. The User Guide describes in more detail how to use the program.

Technical Support
The User Guide provides technical support for using the program’s facilities. It is clearly presented with an extensive index. The Guide uses illustrations to support the information. The program has a familiar style onscreen Help function. Section nine of the User Guide offers additional help through a support section on the website. The documentation also contains a postal address, phone, fax and email address.

Teachers are invited to submit comments to Cricksoft about the program to influence future versions.

Curriculum Relevance
Purpose of the Program
The program has two main purposes. In Run mode it can be used to complete cloze procedure texts. Teachers could use this facility to demonstrate a whole-class activity on a whiteboard or children could work independently. In Edit mode it allows teachers to produce their own cloze procedure texts. The cloze activities can be printed out as worksheets that can be used away from the computer.

Curriculum
The primary files available with the program cover Literacy and Numeracy activities. Although not directly linked to the National Literacy or Numeracy Strategy, they cover the same topics. They are arranged in folders and, as claimed by the publisher, cover a range of activities for learners of all ages and abilities. The Literacy file lists areas such as adjectives and sentence making, while the Numeracy file has fewer activities but includes counting and time. Because the program allows distracter words in addition to the words taken from the text, the folder called Powerful Verbs allows children to select what they consider to be the most powerful verb from a grid of suitable words.

Extent
The primary file contained on the CD-ROM addresses a limited area of the Literacy and Numeracy Curriculum, but by using the Edit mode, teachers could use the program to create cloze procedures that relate to all aspects of the Curriculum. Cloze procedure is particularly beneficial when checking knowledge and the teacher could remove key words from a piece of Science text to check the child’s understanding of knowledge taught. The content of the teacher’s own activities depend on their needs.

Analysis of Contents
Appropriateness
The folders in the primary file cover work suitable for early Key Stage 1 through to the end of Key Stage 2. However, it must be stressed that this is only a sample of activities. By creating activities, the teacher is able to ensure that they address the needs of all the children in the class.

Quality
The picture libraries contained in the program are extensive and appropriate to the Key Stages. Also, word lists are included which cover high frequency words and word groups. The speech possibilities are very good, but the computer needs a sound card and speakers or headphones to use the speech features. The software comes with Microsoft Text-to-Speech, which enables the teacher to include speech in the activities they create. There are several speech options, including different characters and effects. The pitch and speed of the speech can also be changed in addition to the situations that speech is used. The characters have a slight American accent, which I assume is because the speech engine is licensed from Microsoft. However, this seems a small price to pay for such an exciting feature and care has been taken to ensure spelling is suitable for the British market. When installing the program, the teacher chooses American or UK spelling. If UK is chosen, the program will recognise the American spelling ‘color’ as incorrect.

Differentiation
As the teacher has control over the content of the activities, it is extremely easy to provide ones that show differentiation. The program allows the teacher to change activities easily so an activity could be altered slightly to make it easier or harder while keeping the initial structure. For example, the gap can be shown in different ways – the target word can be blurred rather than completely removed from the text and the prompt options can be changed or removed.

The program does have a facility to offer special access to people unable to use a mouse alternative, keyboard or touch screen. ClozePro activities can be operated with either one or two switches. The publisher supplies high quality switches and switch boxes. The User Guide has a comprehensive section that explains how to set up using special access. The information appeared to be easy to understand although I did not evaluate this facility.

Summary
ClozePro is a program that allows teachers to use and create cloze procedure texts to enhance their teaching and learning. It comes with a selection of Literacy and Numeracy activities suitable for children throughout the Key Stages. There are also appropriate word lists and libraries of pictures. The clearly presented User Guide shows teachers how to prepare a text, use options like sound, prompts and notes, link activities and use reports to show children’s progress. The activities can be used by the teacher as part of whole class teaching or accessed at the computer by the children individually. If required the teacher can print the activities for the children to complete away from the computer. People who are unable to use a mouse alternative, keyboard or touch screen, by operating it with switches, can use the program.

Installation & Access
ClozePro was quick and simple to install on standalone computers as it automatically installed itself onto the hard drive. It was also very easy to uninstall using the 'Add or Remove Programs' function in Windows. During this evaluation, ClozePro was not used on a network.

This is a well-produced, high-quality piece of software which works quickly and efficiently. There were no web-links included with the program.

Planning Classroom Use
What This Product Offers
ClozePro enables teachers to produce their own cloze activities for use in any subject. The children can complete the activities onscreen, or they can be printed out and completed by hand. The activities are comprised of a series of screens where the children complete sentences or multiple-choice questions.All of the activities have to be produced by the teacher, although text can be imported from other programs or the Internet. For younger children, a wide range of pictures or animations can be used to illustrate words or phrases.Using ClozePro in my classroom meant that the lower-ability children were able to complete a series of cloze activities on the computer rather than by hand. This meant that their science learning was not restricted by their writing ability.

Purpose of Using This Product
I used ClozePro in my Science sessions and covered a wide variety of topics, as the children have been revising for their SATs. The main subject areas covered were Using Keys; Food Chains; The Human Body and Forces. The program was used predominately by the lower-ability children, although some of the more able completed the pages as subject revision.

As part of my planning, I wrote pages for ClozePro which served as topic introductions. The children completed these rather than copying information from the board or completing worksheets. Once they had completed the sheets they printed them out and stuck them into their books.

Differentiation
ClozePro has been designed to be completely accessible to children with a wide range of abilities. There are a large number of options that can be used for differentiation. ClozePro uses Microsoft 'Text to Speech' and all of the text can be read by the computer. The children can use the different icons to hear either individual words, whole sentences or the whole activity. The speech settings can be changed in a variety of ways, including the sex of the speaker, the pitch and speed of the voice and how much of the text is read.

The 'Prompts' icon can be used by the children to provide them with a textual clue for a missing word. The teacher is able to choose whether this tool shows the whole word, shows the word for a limited time, or reveals the letters of the word one-by-one.

ClozePro comes with an extensive picture library which contains illustrations for common words and phrases. Teachers are also able to import their own pictures and animations into the program.The appearance of the activity text can be changed in 'Edit Mode'. The text style, size and colour can be altered, as can the background colour.

ClozePro can also be used with mouse alternatives, for example joysticks and tracker balls and all ClozePro activities have been designed to be switch-accessible. During this evalution, the Text-to-Speech option was used, as was the Prompts icon.

Classroom Experience
Classroom Organisation
All of the children were initially introduced to the program as part of an ICT session. They then all completed a short multiple-choice task which I had created on how to use the program. Once all of the children were confident in using the program they were placed in ability pairs. During our Science revision sessions (two hours a week), the children spent time completing a series of short cloze activities and multiple-choice tasks which were related to our topics. The lowest-ability children were given access to the computer first and they used the program to complete tasks which gave a general introduction and overview of the topics. Then, towards the end of the topics, the more able children used the same tasks as a revision tool.

Due to the text-to-speech element of the program, the children used headphones at all times in order to minimise distraction to others.

Context of Use
Prior to using the program in the classroom, I needed to write and produce the activities. The program comes with a very clear 'Quick Tour' which enables the teacher to produce a simple sheet very quickly. The User Guide provided with the software supplies the teacher with comprehensive instructions on how to produce more complicated worksheets. Following these, I was able to write a series of activities in a reasonably short period of time.

All of the children were introduced to the topic at the same time. They then worked in pairs, on the computer, to complete a multiple-choice question sheet on how to use the program.

I predominately used the program with the lower-ability children in the class. These children completed activities which gave a basic introduction and overview of the Science topics that we were covering. The more able children in the class used the same sheets at the end of the same topics as revision aids.
Ease of Use - Design & Navigation
ClozePro has been written to be easily accessible for both the teacher and the pupil. The Quick Tour was very useful for me as a basic introduction to the program and gave me an insight into what the program was able to do. Once the children had all been shown how to use the program, they were able to move through the activities with ease. The icons are very clear and the pupils were able to quickly ascertain their functions. The program does not record for the pupils the areas which they have visited.
Monitoring & Assessment
I monitored the children's work by asking them to print their completed worksheets. The pupils then stuck these in their books, which I subsequently marked.

The program can also be used to print reports on the children. However, I found this tool difficult to use as the reports have to be printed after each child has finished the activity. If another pupil starts the worksheets before a report is printed, their work over-writes the score of the previous child. I can see a use for this function in the lower years, where teachers may be assessing a pupil's ability to recognise correct spellings. Once the child has completed the activity the printed report would hold more value.
Feedback from Pupils and Other Staff
The lower-ability children enjoyed using the program as it enabled them to work at the same speed as the other children in the class. They also valued the fact that they were able to express their scientific ability without being restricted by their literacy ability.

Summary
Ease of Use
ClozePro is a high-quality piece of software which can be used by a teacher to produce either cloze activities or multiple-choice question sheets. These can be completed onscreen or they can be printed by the teacher for use in the classroom. The program has an impressive range of features which make it suitable for use by children of all ages and abilities. It can also be used to support children across a range of subjects where cloze activities and multiple-choice questions can be used to support learning.

Classroom Experience
I used ClozePro with my mixed-ability Year 6 Science group. The program was used across a range of topics by both the lower- and higher-ability children. It was initially introduced to the children during an ICT session. The lower-ability children then worked in pairs to complete a range of activities which I had written for them. These activities were designed to give the children a basic introduction and overview of the topics we were covering. Then, towards the end of the sessions, the higher-ability children were able to use the same activities for revision purposes. Once the children had completed the activities, they printed their work and filed it for marking.

The program is supplied with a comprehensive User Guide, which is straightforward to follow and enables the teacher to create a range of both simple and complex activities.