Danielle Steendam

Danielle Steendam is a highly qualified and experienced Early Years teacher who has worked for almost two decades in a range of educational settings across Australia, including preschools, classrooms in urban and remote schools, and extremely remote Indigenous communities across Queensland, Northern Territory and beyond.

These diverse teaching contexts and the many challenges that students experienced with learning, and curriculum readiness helped foster a deep understanding of how to effectively support children who have varied linguistic, cultural and learning profiles.

An initial interest in child development and learning resulted in Danielle completing a Graduate Diploma in Education with a specialisation in the Early Years. As a teacher in the classrooms, this interest crystallised into a refined focus - the development of literacy skills in the critical early years of formal education.

The connection between solid literacy foundations, life long learning and social emotional wellbeing was forged. A passion emerged. The result has been a professional quest to understand: what are the underpinning skills that result in young learners being able to access the curriculum and what is the best way for individual learners to develop these skills?

Pursuing answers to these questions have led to a decade long 'apprenticeship' with Barbara Brann - creator of 'Casey the Caterpillar story' and 'The Magic Caterpillar: Building Blocks to Literacy' Framework. Danielle is the only person in Australia authorised by Barbara Brann to deliver Professional Development workshops on 'The Magic Caterpillar: A Process to develop Correct Letter Formation'. In this capacity, Danielle has delivered more than 150 workshops to teachers in schools throughout Australia and overseas.

In addition to the ongoing professional development provided by Barbara Brann, Danielle also continued further studies and training. She completed LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling), has completed studies at both the IMSLE (Institute for Multi-sensory Structured Literacy Education) and DOGI (Dyslexia-Orton Gillingham Institute Australia). Danielle is an experienced Orton Gillingham practitioner, is accredited with the Australia Dyslexia Association and is a SPELD Specialist Teacher. Most recently, Danielle completed studies at ECU and gained a Graduate Certificate in Learning Difficulties and further developed her understanding of explicit direct instruction, the Science of Reading and the critical impact of providing the right instruction at the right time, for the right duration and with the right frequency.

Danielle’s work is grounded in the belief that building the foundations for literacy begins with the student at the centre and two simple questions. What skills does the student currently have and what are the next skills that require developing? The years of experience and depth of professional knowledge are distilled to address these questions and meet the literacy learning needs of an individual child and their family.