Canavan Elementary teachers say embedded language program produced early gains for kindergartners

Canavan Elementary teachers and specialists described a program of everyday, classroom-embedded language instruction that they say led to measurable gains for kindergartners born during the pandemic.

"Eighty-two percent of our kindergarten students had attended preschool," said Gretchen Newton, Canavan principal, adding that many of those children were born during the pandemic and showed language-concept gaps on early screening. "Our speech and language screener showed significant challenges with language concepts and a clear need for remediation." The district speech-language pathologist, identified in the episode as Catherine, completed initial screeners within the first weeks of school.

The program combines tier-one classroom strategies — including rich conversations during morning meetings, interactive read-alouds and purposeful play tied to Core Knowledge Language Arts lessons — with targeted small-group intervention time teachers call WIN ("What I Need"). Kindergarten teacher Nicole Peppard said teachers intentionally shifted from teacher-led to student-led questioning to boost oral language practice, while intervention specialist Katie Allen described how reading intervention teachers pulled small groups for focused work on sentence formulation, category-building and WH questions.

Staff said the school also launched a deeper-learning project called "Stories Come Alive," in partnership with the Medina County District Library. The library recorded a prompt for students and staff recorded student presentations as videos; QR codes posted at the library let visitors watch the recordings. "We took these stories as a final step and used that oral language to make it a meaningful, authentic way of bringing back that question that the library initially asked," Katie Allen said.

Principal Newton said the team re‑administered the speech screener to students placed in intervention groups and observed "clear grade-level growth from August to November." Beyond scores, staff reported gains in student confidence and collaboration. Newton emphasized the work was not a brief add-on: "This wasn't something that we just stuck in for 10 minutes a day. This was something that we really tried to embed every day into our tier-one instruction and our small-group time."

Teachers credited collaboration among classroom teachers, intervention staff, the speech-language pathologist and school leadership for accelerating progress. Reading intervention teacher Nick Seramelia and other staff coordinated to align lessons so students encountered the same language targets across settings.

For families and community members, teachers urged embedding language-rich interactions into everyday routines and supporting early intervention in kindergarten. "Language development works best when it's embedded naturally throughout the day," Peppard said.

The episode closed with host Amy Busby noting the district will continue sharing classroom work through The Hive podcast and linking community partners to student learning through projects such as the library QR videos.