Using Canvas to Support Literacy in the Early Childhood Classroom

Good afternoon, and welcome. This is using Canvas to support literacy in the early child classroom. This is mainly geared towards pre k to third grade, so we understand that this is not applicable, and you want to use your time elsewhere. So a little bit about us, Melissa and I were both instructional coaches at this point last year. And then over the summer, we have moved up. So we're gonna talk about that before we get started.

Hi, Melissa Dalton. I'm the instructional facilitator of early literacy from Midell Public Schools. That's all I wanna say about me, but I just wanna say about Midell Public Schools. We're in Oklahoma, and, we're right near Oklahoma City. So this is my colleague, Michelle Clark.

I'm Michelle Clark. I am the assistant principal at Park View Elementary. And we are excited to be here with you today. Congrats. Thank you.

So before we get started, we want you to tell us a little bit about you. So there's just a little QR code for us to know a little bit more about our audience and what it's tailored for. And then once you guys get settled in on that, Melissa's mom really wanted a picture of her. We're gonna break the ice and take a selfie with y'all. Yeah.

Also, it's mine and Michelle's friendiversary on book. So we have to take a photo with all of you lovely people. It wouldn't be right if we didn't. Alright. Selfie time.

I gotta be on this one. Okay. One, two, three. Hey, mom. Okay.

So we're gonna start by talking about why it's important to support early literacy. So why is explicit, systematic, early literacy instruction important? And the answer to that is the amount of time that's needed to close the gap when students get behind. So I thought this research was really compelling. So for kindergartners who are behind, fifteen to thirty minutes, over a short period of time can usually get them caught up. But when we move to first graders who are behind, that time changes to thirty to forty five minutes.

And it's over a short period of time, but you're about to see that change. First second graders who are behind, they need sixty minutes. Of explicit, systematic phonics instruction every day to get caught up when they're behind. And once kiddos make it to third grade, or older than that, they need ninety minutes to three hours per day over a long period of time. So, prevention is key.

So we wanna show you some ways that we use Canvas to support early literacy in Midel. And these are ways that we use within our classroom, but then we had our kids model for us since we were not teachers this summer. So the first is I made an announcement that was user friendly for my first grader. So on this specific skill, they were working on Shore A. So this is what it looked like for their morning work whenever they came in.

It was more beneficial for them than just giving them a worksheet. So they would click on the day of the week, and it would take them to a video using short a words. And then after they finished that video, they could use the rest of their time in the morning before the bell ring. Which usually wasn't a lot to do any of these. So to embed that in Google slides, there's many or embedding your Google slide into Canvas.

There's many ways to do that, but this is just a short way that I did. You can also use the plug. And that's the seal. Okay. I'll turn it off.

Yep. It says new. Thank you. Okay. So Google slides can also be used to be added to Canvas, so that, you can use it as a center rotation or an activity.

And the reason that you might wanna do that is because oftentimes explicit phonics instruction to your whole group is easy, but when you need to do those interventions, you have to keep those other kiddos busy. And you don't just wanna keep them busy. You wanna keep them engaged in activities that are meaningful for literacy. So this is one, activity that and this was just purchased off teachers pay teachers, but the voice over, it was just a slide deck off teachers by teachers, and then we edited it however we wanted, and then we kind of voiced over. So it queued the kiddos, what to do.

Almost like they were doing, a lesson with us, but they were just following along. And it's really cute to watch in the classroom. They'll have their headphones on, and you can hear them all talking out loud. We'll just watch it for a minute. Hi, friends.

Welcome back. Today, we're gonna be working on Wonder's unit four, week four, day two. Do you remember our central question for this week? What insects do you know about? How are they alike and different? Let's review our vocabulary words. The first word is flutter, which means to move or fly with quick movements. Betterflies flutter from flower to flower.

So, obviously, I would also like to say, that these videos were done pre science of reading in our strict. So you'll probably see some things that you're like, that's not how I would do it. That's not how we would do it now either, but we're just kinda giving you some ideas for how you can some techniques and strategies that you can use in your classroom. We also use foundations in a lot of our elementary schools in Medell. So this was just a video off YouTube, and then I voiced over and gave them directions so they can be practicing their foundation skills in a center again so that you can be working, intensively with your small group for that day.

Hi, friend. I want you to practice your foundation's letter sound cards. So I'm gonna say the letter, the picture, and the sound, and I want you to repeat after me. Then we've gone through all of the letter sound cards. I'm gonna give you a chance to do it by yourself.

Are you ready? Let's go. A, apple, a. I'll be assuming we're not gonna go through the best on cards. But those are just a few ways that you can embed Google you can use embedded Google slides to support early literacy with your other kiddos that you're not working intensively within the men in the moment. Sorry.

So moving on, you can also create an assignment for students to read their codeable reader for the week. So I usually did the small group at my table with students Monday through Thursday, and then Friday, this was their way to show me. That they could do it. And then we would randomly select kids if they wanted to showcase theirs, and the class would celebrate their success with it. So on the Canvas end, this is what it would look like as they turned in their assignment.

You gotta find it. It's right, sorry. Yep. So we made a video of a student reading a decodable reader. It's just my daughter at our dining room table because we didn't wanna a video of any anyone else's children, but what she does is she has the decodable up.

We have it, linked in through HMH into reading because that's what we use now. And, so she reads it, and you can see the decodable. The teacher can see the decodable on the they can also see the video of the kiddo reading. We mind you tech support. Cully.

Bao, Jim, kids, mom finds us. Mom has a pup. The pup Wags a lot. Our puppy is wax is wax. Jim, Pat's wax, wax, wax.

Wacks is funny. Jim, bats. Wabs She was really excited. My son didn't wanna be in any of the videos, but she was like, do you wanna make another video, mom? She likes to be the center of attention unlike me. So the reason I like that activity also is because I don't know about you, but as an early childhood educator, there were a lot of times I wanted to hear my kiddos read, and I just literally couldn't listen to them all read during the day.

There just wasn't enough time. So we teach them how to record themselves in canvas, and then you can watch it later. I mean, let's honest. We all grade papers at home. Right? We all grade at home.

We do work at home. And so that's something that you can do later when the kids aren't there or on your plan time. And you've still heard them read. And also, you have evidence for their parents at a parent teacher conference. That's my favorite.

When they say, my kid can read. We can be like, okay. Well, I have a video. Let's watch together. And it kinda just gives parents that video evidence.

So you're not, you know, having a disagreement. You're just showing evidence. And then with that too, my kids would always appreciate whenever I did a little video afterwards to give them a little feedback and and just boosted their confidence. Some of my struggling readers, if they got one site word right in it, then they would be beaming for the rest of the day because I acknowledge that they got that correct. So in a world where a technology is more prevalent than ever, we need to make sure that we utilize it and then correct way so that the impact can be astronomical.

Okay. This is my kiddo again, and she's using an old, presentation that I made, and it has sight words. So it's not taught with the hard word method. Again, it's not aligned to science of reading, but you'll get the idea, of how we used it. And again, sometimes, you know, it's just hard to get through all your kiddos to screen them on their high frequency words.

But this is a way that you could teach them to record themselves and that you could grade it later. In the videos wonky at first. So just and sometimes they'll self correct. None. Full about full.

Wasn't supposed to go that fast. Agolf, food, one, eight, out. Oh, what? And so the way that I did that, even though it was crazy was it was a PowerPoint And then I used Canvas Studio to record it and make it into a video, and it just flashed at whatever frequency I clicked and made it flash at whatever frequency I wanted. Because obviously they don't know the word by sight if if they don't have automaticity. And so, it flashed.

I counted in my head and clicked through the presentation, and then I embedded it in canvas, and then they pull it up, and then they record themselves, and you have Again, you have evidence. Sometimes, sometimes parents are really convinced that their kids can do it, or they wanna convince you pretty badly. And that way, you can just sit at the conference and watch it together also. And then I also used assignments to create group work in each of these three were the steps that I did. So we did a nonfiction research project to get science mixed in with literacy, and my students' research biomes.

I could not go back and find that or blur out their pictures. But we put them in groups of five and they would start with figuring out which biome they wanted and then go into epic, the free book reading, find nonfiction stories, and create facts about it, and then they went on to present everything that they had learned. And we as a class watched that and celebrated their success through them. And they had a lot of ownership to that. So it was just very successful to watch them.

And then we had virtual learning with curriculum. I had a video of me and my colleagues doing a Hagerty lesson here, but it did not attach. Another option we did during virtual learning is I taught snippets of wonders. And we have that one. Can you use some flutters and agent H? We did wonders endearing the pandemic, and then we just moved to HMH.

We just adopted HMH last year. But we thought we'd show lots of different examples since we just happened to have him. Is it already pulled up? Remember that one didn't pull up. Hi, friends. Welcome to virtual Wednesday of wonders.

Let's get started. Hey, want you to find an object in your house, maybe an animal, a stuffed animal, a box of cereal, Whatever you find and tell what our vocabulary words mean to. You ready? Feature. So if you don't remember feature, let's look at the context clues of our sentence. The main feature of an elephant's body is its trunk.

So a feature is a part or something that you can see. Okay? So we see the ears, the tail, those are all features, they're parts of the elephant's body. What about a We went on to do sight words from here, and then we read our weekly reader together. I'm not gonna make you listen to me for that long. I heard a kind of a curriculum question out in the audience.

So we used to have wonders, and then we just adopted HMH into reading. We use Hagerty for phonemic awareness, and then several of our sites use foundations for our phonics piece. And the ones that don't this year are gonna use the new structure literacy piece that's in HMH. So they just re we adopted last year. And then this year, they added structured literacy And so we're buying the structured literacy teachers guides.

They're also available online, for free if you use HMH, and it's aligned to the science of reading. So it's called, a structured literacy. Yeah. Yeah. So it's already a part.

It's, part of inter reading. They just finished it July first. They got scope and sequence out. And then they have a few of the modules ready now, and they're gonna add the rest by October. And it's aligned to the science of reading.

So it teaches the, the sight words or the high frequency words as hard words. It has new decodable readers, and then they redid the know it show up pages. So that they align with the structured literacy piece. We wanna make sure that we give you enough time questions. So we have two more slides, and then we'll open it up for questions.

So in summary, a student's increase in age, the amount of time it takes to fill the achievement gap is substantially larger. Remediation early on is key to prevention, utilizing canvas and developmentally appropriate ways can supplement and identify individual student understanding. And canvas is a well rounded with the capabilities to help teachers support students of all ability levels. So now we have a little jamboard for you to decide what ways that you may have seen in our presentation that you could use in your instruction through Canvas. And we will read some of those out as they come in.

Oh, Hey, tech support. Yeah. I'm gonna let you know director of technology and say that she's a dentist. Just head back there. Just keep on her name.

Okay. Do we have any questions while she's fixing that? Look like for the early learn, like, the campus page, do they know going in exactly where what to do, or is it very specific to ensure having it set up in centers? So we taught that as it was onboarded. They we would start with the first step of just going and seeing the homepage. And then we started going through the motions of this is what you can click on to get here. But it's pretty user friendly.

I'll go back to the first. Y'all should be good. So on this, it's interactive. So if they wanted to click on they were on Monday, they could click on that, and it would take them straight where they needed to go. To that video or even Epic, it was directly linked to our class.

Does that answer your question? Okay. I'll also say too, like, I know it sounds probably pretty complicated to have kids record themselves reading, but, I was home with my son during the pandemic. He was in first grade, and my best friend was his first grade teacher. And she had the directions very explicitly laid out. We were on an AB schedule.

And so he was in school some days and out of school some days, and she literally taught them how to go in and record themselves during the decodable. And I didn't have to help him with that. I had to make sure he stayed on track because he was a first grade boy, but he could totally do it himself. Well, and I never sent anything with expectations of them to do it at home that I hadn't taught them and they were successful with in class. Yes, ma'am.

I have a two part question. Okay. So my first question is, when did you start this, like, when in the school year? Like, like, how far end did you let them get activated with learning the technology before you said, okay. Here's our morning work. It was probably October.

Because I wanted them to become familiar and we did just one step at a time and adding a little bit as we went. Did you just have their devices on the desk ready for them, or did you have them grab devices as they came through? So we had a procedure for that. So our kids would our kids would come in. There was one person that was the device monitor, and they would open the cart. As I got there, it was usually a kid that was there first thing in the morning, and they unplugged all of the devices.

It was someone that you could trust to do it gently. And then they would go to their number and I had a picture of their face in front of their assigned number. They would get that, put it on their desk put their things away, use the bathroom, and then come back and get to work. Alright. Any other questions? Alright.

We're gonna try it again. Aaron works in magic. Mation. Here we go. So we have embedded curriculum as a great tool.

Giving students the ability to read and then immediately hearing what they read as powerful. Love how kids can record themselves so powerful. Center rotation assignments, record reading, and seesaw. And we have I don't use it currently, but I'm interested in starting. Excited for that one.

And I will say some of my students that had recorded, they wanted to take their device home and show their parents what they did during the day, and that really helped the home to school connection. We have a place to review. You guys have any more questions? Alright. That's all we have for y'all. Thank you for coming.

Oh, sorry. Go ahead. That is in the works. So when we first started, we were given the lenience on what we could and couldn't do. So that followed the guidelines that we were given in developmentally appropriate, but it just worked easier for our kids than going through the modules.

Our students really struggled with the clicks through the modules. So we did that more to link them to what we needed them to be on. But now we have frameworks that they're gonna be adjusted to, but it could still be used for an announcement. Alright. So we have our emails.

If you decide that you have a question later on and you wanna contact us, we'd be more than happy to help you. What would you say is your most powerful thing that you've solved any, like, lower I think it's always the most powerful when they record themselves because, they can watch it themselves, especially with the decoderable reader in the sight words because you they're on and you composite. And you can say, did you hear what you said? Let's look at the word. Let's break it down. And, for me, the parent evidence piece is huge.

Since in Midell where standards based, our report card is standards based, k through two. So I really need to be able to prove if the child can do it or not. And that's just video evidence that I can pull up easily. And I just think it's so much more meaningful than say, your child is a struggling reader, or here's their score on the star assessment. This way, I can say, look, they're having trouble.

This was our decodable reader for short a words. They're having trouble decoding short a words. This is what you can do at home. For me, I would say group work too, just because I could pair my low kids with my high kids, and everyone's getting something out of it. We had a question.

That was our, reading adopted curriculum that we use HMH into reading so we can link it in canvas. And so, we linked it in Canvas, and then she pulled up the screen record, the option in studio to record herself and the screen. And that way, yeah. But you could sorry. You could do it with any PDF that you could, you know, obviously have a reader.

It was the studio. Yes. Yes. Alright. If there's not any other questions, don't forget to rate our session.

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