There has been a lot of buzz over the last few months about the mysterious Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™. What is it? When will it be out? How can I get my hands on it?! Well it's official. The future of literacy education is finally here!
What is Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™?
The short version is that Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ is a classroom-based literacy system for grades PreK to 6 designed to change the landscape of reading instruction. But it is so much more. The materials and thoughtfulness that makes up this system, and the energy that has gone into creating it, is anything but short. Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ is designed to lift students' learning beyond the walls of the classroom with high-quality texts and an instructional blueprint for teaching that will create authentic experiences in reading, thinking, talking, writing, and reflecting. Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ will help teachers provide students with the opportunity to see themselves reflected in the books they read and write about; grow as thoughtful users of literacy; and engage in real reading, writing, and thinking. With this system, teachers will work on the cutting edge of students' learning; support independence and students' agency; and understand the critical role of responsive teaching in leading literacy learning forward. This system is meant to help teachers show students the way in which they can live a literate life.
Instructional Contexts and Materials
A student's learning deepens when they think, talk, and write about high-quality, rich, authentic texts across many different instructional contexts. Those instructional contexts are thoroughly represented in Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™. Below is a breakdown of each context, and the materials that come with them:
WHOLE-GROUP TEACHING
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Interactive Read-Aloud: the very best age-appropriate, grade-appropriate trade books to promote the joy of reading, expand vocabulary, and nurture the ability to think, talk, and write about texts that fully engage students' interest. (120 titles per grade PreK to 6; lesson folder per title.)
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Reading Minilessons: Using an inquiry approach, the reading minilessons provide explicit teaching of the behaviors presented in the Interactive Read-Aloud lessons. (150-255 minilessons per grade.)
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Shared Reading: an exquisite collection of original texts (enlarged and accompanying small versions) that nurture students' ability to construct meaning in a supported context so they can enjoy reading and learn critical concepts of how texts work. (200 titles spanning grades PreK-3; lesson folder per title.)
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Phonics/Spelling/Word Study Lessons: Minilessons driven by principles from the Comprehensive Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Guide and The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy Continuum. (100 minilessons per grade.)
SMALL-GROUP TEACHING
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Guided Reading: the most powerful and engaging authentic texts to build each student's ability to process increasingly challenging books with fluency and comprehension. Build a rich guided reading collection over time with 5 titles per level A-Z on the F&P Text Level Gradient™; lesson folder per title.
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Book Clubs/Literature Discussion: an authentic opportunity to bring students together for in-depth discussion of a captivating trade book they have read in order to extend thinking and learn about themselves as readers. (32 titles per grade K-3; 48 titles per grade 4-6; discussion card per title.)
INDEPENDENT LEARNING
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Independent Reading: A carefully curated collection of authentic children’s literature that provides the opportunity for students to develop tastes as readers and to read a large number of self-selected books independently. With accompanying contexts cards, you can make specific teaching points in brief conferences that lead the individual reader forward. (150 titles per grade K-2; 200 titles per grade 3-6; conferring card per title.)
Pricing and Release Dates
Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ will be released in stages over the next few years with the first wave coming out in the fall of this year! Pricing and what will be out and when is still being ironed out, but you’re sure to be the first to know by doing the following:
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Contact your local sales representative. Once all the information becomes available they will be able to walk you through your options. If you don’t know who your sales rep is click here to find out.
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Sign up on the Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ landing page here to receive the most recent updates on release dates and pricing info.
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Become a member of the Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Community page at www.fountasandpinnell.com to receive exclusive information as it becomes available, including free, LIVE webinars with Fountas and Pinnell!
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Follow @FountasPinnell on Twitter and join our monthly LIVE Twitter Chats with Fountas and Pinnell with #FPLiteracy.
Whether you are teaching prekindergarteners to recognize individual letters in their names or you are teaching sixth graders to recognize bias in the language of a persuasive text, your work is transformative. It’s demanding, challenging, and at times altogether frustrating. But your work as a teacher of literacy is also worthwhile and important because it transforms the lives of children.
~The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Team
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