Semerc’s A Busy Day wins Education Resource Award

SEMERC’s A Busy Day has won the award for the Best Special Education Resource Involving ICT at the Education Resources Awards (ERA) 2008. The win was announced at a gala dinner held in Birmingham on 29 February.

The award follows a shortlisting for SEMERC’s Strumbie Island at the BETT Awards 2008. Another product from the Granada Learning Group, BlackCat’s Science Activity Builder, was also shortlisted for an ERA award in the Best Primary Resource involving ICT category.

A Busy Day is aimed at visual learners and children with a range of learning difficulties, such as Down’s syndrome and autistic spectrum disorders. The software prioritises individual learning requirements with step-by-step guidance towards what, for some, may be their first experience of success in literacy.

Andrew Thraves, Group Head of Publishing at Granada Learning which publishes the SEMERC range of products, said: “We are delighted that A Busy Day has won recognition at the Education Resources Awards. The CD-Rom has enabled many children in mainstream and special schools to take their first steps into a world of reading that they have previously found difficult to access via conventional reading schemes.”  

The 13 interactive scenes within A Busy Day are familiar to all children, such as getting up in the morning or going to school. The program is designed to help a child understand that words carry meaning by encouraging them to hear, say, remove and match words to pictures. As the child learns to recognise a few words and progress is made, the teacher can select more words from the lists available within the software and even add their own specific words. This helps ensure learning is more personalised and captures the interest of each child, which is key to motivating less able or reluctant readers.

Once a child has developed their word recognition skills to an appropriate level, sentences such as ‘I like toast’ can be included in the story and simple punctuation is introduced. The child is encouraged to listen to and read the sentence and the words can then be jumbled up for the child to put back in the correct order. As progress is made, more complex sentences can be introduced which include verbs and adjectives supporting ongoing achievement in reading.

Offering a comprehensive choice of accessibility options, A Busy Day enables teachers to use the resource to support children with a range of learning difficulties. Visitors to the Sherston stand (IT-V34), sister company to Granada Learning, will be able to see A Busy Day, which costs from £49.95 for a single user licence.

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About SEMERC

SEMERC is a leader in ICT special needs publishing, supplying software and hardware to both mainstream and special educational needs settings across the UK. All of SEMERC's recent software includes a range of accessibility options, such as switch access, voice input and display options. Individual student records are also available so that resources can be personalised to suit the individual's interests, learning styles and curriculum requirements.

Address:         Granada Learning, The Chiswick Centre, 414 Chiswick High Road, Chiswick, London W4 5TF

Telephone:       01666 843295

Fax:      01666 843216

Email:   info@semerc.com

Website:          www.semerc.com

Press contact:

For further information, a review copy of the software or images to accompany the release please contact:

Rebecca Bremner, Catherine Lane PR, 25 Freman Drive, Buntingford, Herts, SG9 9TD

Tel: 0709 2872720.

Email: rebecca@catherinelane.com

Ref: GL052

Issue date: 03/03/08