We continue our work with Fountas and Pinnell. The books authored by Irene Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell have become key literacy learning and assessment tools for our school board (not to mention their international following).

In our classrooms our staff regularly make use of the resources available in:

 

1. Guided Reading

2. Guiding Readers and Writers

3. Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency

4. Benchmark Assessment System and

5. Levelled Literacy Intervention System

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Through the use of these book sets and kits, our teachers are able to work in highly effective ways with students and learn more about literacy teaching and learning as they do.

 

With the Fountas & Pinnell systems, our teachers are able to work in small group settings where they can work closely with students who struggle with reading and writing.  We have seen that students working with F&P tools can be brought up to grade-level competency, often within four to six months.

Some of the basic yet critical criteria that are required in F&P books use for Leveling Reading include:

 

• Word count

• Number of different words

• Ratio of different words to total words

• Number of high-frequency words

• Ratio of high-frequency words to total words

• Number of low-frequency words to total words

• Ratio of low-frequency words to total words

• Sentence length

• Sentence complexity

• Predictability

• Language pattern and repetition

• Print size, spacing, and number of words per page

• Illustration support

• Concept load

• Topic familiarity