Savannah Cameron-Fisher

Student-teacher
University of Lethbridge
s.cameron@uleth.ca
September, 18 2015
Teacher Associate
Dear Parents of my new students,
Hi my name is Mrs. Fisher, I am very grateful that I have been given the opportunity to teach your 2 nd grade
students. I am so excited to get started and help instill and continue the love of learning that I come to believe all
students should experience. It is also my belief that a safe, clean and warm environment is also something that every
student should come to class and experience, considering the needs of each student is something that is not only
important, but vital to instilling a love of reading, writing and numeracy.
Two of my great passions are social studies and literature and I hope that I can share the joy I gain from reading with
children so that they might broaden their own understandings of the world. I plan to get to know each of my students
individually so that I may better strategize how to approach their individual needs as learners. In the mean time I do
incorporate a variety of teaching strategies to appeals to the many different learning styles that come with any class.
Reading is essential to learning because it helps to build verbal abilities and strengthen communication skills, in
addition reading fluency, (the ability to read text accurately and quickly), and reading comprehension,
(understanding meaning from what has already been read) open the doors of possibility for students. These essential
skills enable students to access a world of written knowledge and understand it as it is being communicated to them.
It is especially important to encourage fluency and comprehension of reading this amongst those young students
who are still learning the language of which they speak.
My classroom has been set up to encourage both individual quiet time reading and buddy or group reading. There is
a carpeted area for group reading periods such as reading buddies, which is a period of time each week when we
welcome 6th grade students to come and pair up with our 2nd grade students, the students read out loud to one
another, this is done in addition to our classes novel studies. Reading buddies is an effective way to help teach
younger students to make connections between written and spoken words.
Because encouraging the exploration of literature cannot be done without encouraging students to read at home one
of the strategies I try to employ within my classroom is to have a reading/writing chart. Each of the students is
informed at the beginning of the year that every thirty minutes of reading done at home (that can be verified by
parents via agendas) will be awarded one reading sticker for the class reading chart, each month the two students
with the most stickers will be allowed to pick a book from the Scholastics Canada flyer as a reward for their efforts.
One additional sticker may be awarded to those students who complete the thirty minutes of reading and write a
short journal-like entry about what theyve read (this encourages comprehension).
Over the course of the school year each of the students will be encouraged to continue to develop phonemic
awareness, this is the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds. As phonic awareness is so important to the
understanding and continuous learning of English as a language our class will continue throughout the year to have
spelling tests based on developing these understandings. Each of the spelling tests sent home will focus on sounds as
well as the letters used to construct words. For example I may begin the year by sending home spelling lists that
contain words that all have a matching first letter or a matching sound such a bear and bat or bowl and soul. Students
will learn how to spell these words but, also begin to understand the relationships between written and spoken
words. In class we will be dissecting these word lists to play with phonics and build vocabulary. Vocabulary building

is an additionally important area for students growth as it aids in effective communication oral and written
communication.
I use writing to learn strategies as they help students to interact with their texts, create thoughtful thinking and
develop essentially thinking and writing abilities.
Quick writes are a technique I use in class to help student summarize what they are learning and get ready to start
thinking about the lesson that lies ahead. I use this technique in all subject areas as it maintains a connection with
literacy and as such it is essential that each student be encouraged both at school and at home to read and write. My
quick writes are usually 1-2 minutes at either the beginning or end of the class to help the student get a sense of
where the lesson will be going or summarize and re-instill what the lesson was about. As the process of writing
stimulates those who are passively learning to become active and engaged learners, this works by forcing the
students to put their own knowledge and thinking down on paper, it encourages thinking about thinking
Sentence synthesis this is when a teacher selects three or four main ideas from the lesson and asks that the student
connects them. I use these to introduce the next lesson as most of my lessons are built upon on another.

Each of my reading strategies enables students to work on the essential components of reading Phonemic
awareness, for starters is the ability to hear, recognize, manipulate individual sounds, this is important as it sets up
the foundation for connecting words with their over-all meaning. Phonics is the ability to use the meaning of words
and their sounds to connect written language with the sounds of spoken language, this is essential because it helps
students to understand how to use written communication effectively. Phonics has a direct relationship with reading
comprehension, this is the ability to grasp concepts and take away meaning from written communication, this is
essential to learning because much of the knowledge your student will come in contact with over their life will be
stored or communicated to them in written form, so encouraging the development of comprehension and reading
fluency (the ability to read quickly and accurately) at a young age also encourages successful learning.
I read to my students each day because hearing good pronunciation helps students to develop good phonemic
awareness as well as hearing what reading (putting those sounds together) sounds like, thus when they practice their
own reading they can practice the components of reading while keeping in mind how it should sound. Once students
develop good fluency and accuracy, reading becomes less of an effort; intern students are more capable of focusing
on the texts information (comprehension) and become less distracted by how well they are reading.
I believe employing a variety of strategies helps to establish a positive introduction to literature. As I encourage
parents to read with their children, I have attached a list of 10 wonderful books I have used in my classroom, these
books are fantastic examples of chapter and picture books that can be used to help children develop the components
of reading.
To view my vision of literacy, please visit my website. http://communicationskey.weebly.com/
Sincerely,
Savannah Cameron-Fisher

Class book list:

Charolettes Web by E.B White
Blink and Gollie by Kate DiCamillo
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett

The Harry Potter Series by J. K Rowling

Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (series) by Jeff Kinney
Officer Buckle & Gloria by Peggy Rathmann