Dear Families,

      I want to start by introducing myself, I graduated from Northern Arizona University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Elementary and Special Education. This will be my 3^rd year teaching. For 2 years I taught K-2 Special Education at a different school and now works with students in 4th-6^th grade. This summer Icelebrated my second anniversary with my husband, who is also a teacher, at Deer Valley Middle School. I has one fur-baby, a Corgi/Chihuahua named Archie, who I love to pieces. I am originally from California, moved to Flagstaff for college and then moved down to Phoenix to teach 3 years ago, so I am still getting used to the heat!

          My philosophy for teaching is to provide a welcoming and loving learning environment. This will allow students to feel comfortable to share their ideas and step out of their box. I believe by ensuring this type of environment, my students will show great growth both academically and emotionally. 

        This year your child will be participating in either Read 180 or it’s sister program, System 44 with either myself or my co-teacher Mrs Gustafson. Read 180 is a comprehensive reading instruction program that builds your child’s skills in comprehension, word attack skills, vocabulary, and writing- to name a few. This program starts out at their level and grows as they grow. System 44, brings things back to basics with an explicit and systematic approach to phonics instruction. This system builds the foundation for reading that meets it’s learners at their level and grows as your child’s learning grows to keep them challenged.

     Classes of Read 180 and System 44 are taught in three rotations within a 45 minute timeframe. The three rotations are small group, independent reading, and software (on the computer). Student rotations are spread between an A/B day. “A” day starts out with a whole group instruction to build background knowledge and set purpose to small group instruction. Then after 20 minutes, students break up into groups and to one of the three stations. Day “B” will have everyone switching to the stations they were not at on “A” Day. The first few weeks are all about routine and procedure. By the second to third week, students get in the routine and the class runs like a well-oiled machine.

In addition, Mrs Gustafson and I work with your child’s homeroom teacher to determine areas that need to be retaught from their core instruction- instruction done by their general education teacher. We determine the areas that need more support and provide another opportunity to learn the skill during “intervention time”. Here students are working on skills from their grade level.

Lastly, we push in to Math and ELA for part of the time to provide more support with their grade level instruction. We work with the grade level teachers to provide accommodations to help your child access the general education curriculum.

     Our focus this year is to help your child make growth in all aspects of school- academically and mentally. We are working this year is to create a community of learners where we set goals and work together as a team to ensure we are all successful. We incorporate different techniques and strategies to help your child close the learning gap.  With that, we believe that communication between home, school, and student is crucial in meeting the goals we set forth this year. We hope that you will communicate with us regularly by phone, email, or in person, as we look to you as a partner in your child's educational success. In addition to our communication, we will also keep in close contact with your child’s homeroom teacher to ensure that we are meeting their needs in all settings.

      Along with teaching special education I am also the Student Council Advisor. I will be working with a group of 4th-6th graders to do different things for the school such as plan the 6th grade dance and sell Valentine Grams and be leaders on campus.

      I look forward to building a relationship with you and your child throughout this school year and thus providing the best education that we are capable of giving. Thank you so much for sharing your child with me. If you need to contact us, please feel free to leave me a voicemail at (623) 445-4160 or email at heather.abrams@dvusd.org. 

Sincerely,
Heather Abrams

Learning Center Teacher

Student Council Advisor