Fountas & Pinnell Blog

We recently released a blog series where we defined the instructional contexts that makes up a coherent literacy system. In case you missed any of them, view the full lineup!

The interpretation and use of benchmark data are more important than the scores themselves.

Assessment is not teaching; it is gathering information for teaching.

Daily read-alouds create shared meanings among a group and contribute to a sense of community.

In a cohesive learning community, whoever is working in the school should be creating a vision, goals, and language together.

What is phonics, spelling, and word study? Why is it important? And what does it look like in the classroom?

Whole-group time builds a sense of community as students meet together to share learning.

As you implement phonics, spelling, and word study lessons, you will not only learn more about children's development of word-solving strategies but you will also gain invaluable insight into our English linguistic system.

What are reading minilessons? Why are reading minilessons important? And what do they look like in the classroom?

During reading minilessons, the teacher presents specific, explicit instruction to help children become independent readers for life.

It is important that early in their lives as readers, children learn the power of choice. Only through choice can they develop tastes and preferences, learn that they like some writers better than others, and experience finding a great book that they can recommend to their friends.

Create a Coherent Vision for Literacy Learning: An Introduction to Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™, Grades PreK-6.

Fill your classroom library with many texts your students can read independently. Quantity matters. The higher the quality of the texts they read and comprehend, the stronger their foundation for talking and writing.

What is independent reading? Why is it important? And what does it look like in the classroom?

For independent reading, students learn how to select books for themselves that interest them and that they can read with understanding and fluency.

Minilessons place a strong instructional frame around independent reading.

Registration is now open for the multi-day institutes on the Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI) Systems for Grades K-12!

A reading minilesson is a concise and focused lesson on any aspect of effective reading or classroom reading work that is important for students to explicitly understand at a particular point in time.