Class Overview

Letter of Introduction 

(sent home with your child the first day of school)

My name is Amber Steeves and I am writing this as your grade two child’s English teacher! Last year I was on maternity leave with my youngest daughter, but I am excited to return to my position at Broadview! I am an English to French Immersion teacher in the mornings to M. Lachapelle and Mme Domingue’s classes, and in the afternoon I teach the English half of the day to one of the Senior Kindergarten classes. 

I will be taking the first few weeks of school to get to know my students, teaching routines and expectations, and doing some diagnostic assessments. I plan to determine each child’s reading level so that I can begin a take-home reading program. This is a program that Parent Council helped to bring to our school that is run on-line. I am very excited to use it and I will be sending more information about this program and how you can be involved at home at a later date.

I run a Balanced Literacy program. Balanced Literacy is a teaching framework designed to help all students learn to read and write effectively, based on the research of Marie Clay, Irene Fountas, and Gay Su Pinnell. Children read and write independently and in a variety of group settings. Balanced Literacy classrooms focus on different types of reading experiences: read-aloud, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading. Students also participate in shared and individual writing activities. Additionally, during many reading and writing experiences, students are engaged in word study. Listening and speaking are also emphasized in this integrated language approach.

I really value parental involvement and support from home, and I will do my best to keep you informed about what is happening in the classroom. To that end, I have created a blog that I encourage you to follow. On it, you will find the weekly word wall words, shared readings and updates on what we are working on in class. The blog can be found at http://englishwithmrssteeves.blogspot.ca. The easiest and best way to make the most of the blog is to register for automatic emails when I add a post. This way you won’t need to be continuously checking the site since the update will be sent directly to your smart phone or personal computer. To register, all you need to do is visit the blog and type in your email address at the top right box where it says “follow by email”. Alternatively, you can request that I add your email address in for you on the short survey that is attached.

I encourage all parents to follow my classroom blog in order to keep informed of what we are working on in class. Here, I will also post the weekly words that we are practicing each week as well as the Shared Reading poem of the week. These weekly words are words that students will be expected to spell correctly in all written work that they submit to me. I do not run a formal spelling program; however we do many activities in class to remember how to spell these high frequency words. These words will be taken from the Dolce spelling words for grade two, as well as from commonly misspelled words found in my students own current writing. If you wish to help your child at home practice their spelling words, there will be activities listed on the blog that can easily be done at home.

If you wish to contact me about anything else, you are welcome to call me at the school. It may also be most convenient for you to email me directly. My school address is amber.steeves@ocdsb.ca. I check my email daily and it would be a rare occurrence for me not to respond the same day.

I look forward to working with you and your grade two child as the year progresses. I encourage you to join us at the Meet the Teacher night that takes place early in September so that we may meet in person!