Video: CES Summer Reading Camp

The video I produced tells the story of educators who have a passion to see students find the fun in learning and the drive to succeed. I am so blessed to be a part of Chickasaw Elementary School’s Summer Reading Program. We are proving 70 hours of reading instruction over the course of five weeks to our K-3^rd grade students who have fallen below proficiency in reading. As we all know, reading is the foundation that all kids need in order to learn almost everything else. We are going back to the basics with our summer readers by reviewing and teaching phonological awareness, phonics (decoding and encoding), sight words, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, oral language, and writing. We also want to make learning fun for these students, so in addition to intense instruction, we are making games out of phonics, creating crafts with letters, using multi-sensory tools to re-emphasize letter strokes, incorporating touch spelling, having daily read-alouds, and enjoying lots of singing and dancing to songs about letters and sounds. We have seen many students making great strides just in the first few weeks, and we cannot wait to see how much they will have improved by the end of camp.

I shot the footage all on my iPhone 10xs Max in and around the school. I created this video using OpenShot Video Editor. This is my first time ever creating a video, so I had to learn and figure out how to do everything. I did have to watch several YouTube videos to learn how to remove sound from clips, add music, transition between clips, and fade the music out. I really liked how OpenShot allows you to trim the clips and add a soundtrack to your video. I did not like the title page and titles templates. I do not think there were enough choices, or maybe it was just me because I just could not get them figured out. That is why in a couple of interviews, there is a translucent bar over the interviewees faces for a few seconds. The music I used in the video was a track I downloaded called “Inspire” from bensound.com. Bensound had a great selection of royalty free music from which to choose, and it was very easy to download. Next time I create a video, I want to spend a little more time learning about how to make the titles work better for me and creating smoother transitions between clips.

When I began this project, I did not know what I wanted to do, and I thought I would barely have enough footage to make a one-minute video. Well, after I came up with the idea to tell the story of our reading camp and then started interviewing coworkers, filming in class instruction, and shooting B-roll footage, I ended up with a ten-minute video! I could not believe it. I hope it is not too long, and I hope you enjoy this video.

Chickasaw Elementary School Summer Reading Camp 2021