Essential Literacy
Core Values
Welcome to Fountas & Pinnell
Fountas & Pinnell Classroom is a cohesive, multi-text approach to literacy instruction for students. The System is designed to support whole-group, small-group and independent learning opportunities. Fountas & Pinnell Classroom is rich with authentic texts, lessons or conferring cards, minilessons and professional tools & learning for a systematic, transformative approach to literacy instruction.
Lift students' learning beyond the walls of the classroom with texts and a blueprint for teaching that create authentic experiences in reading, thinking, talking, writing, and reflecting to realize what it truly means to live a literate life.
Fountas and Pinnell Classroom Contexts
A Design for Responsive Literacy Teaching
Comprehensive Design
Successful language and literacy learning is built on your understanding of how students develop as readers, writers, and language users. An effective instructional design is represented in each setting of literacy teaching — whole group, small group, and individual — across different instructional contexts.
Whole-Group Teaching
Some instruction is most efficiently delivered to the entire class at the same time. Whole-group time also builds a sense of community as students meet together to share learning.
Small-Group Teaching
You can bring students together in a small group based on their level of development, needs, or interests.
Individual Teaching
Individual teaching increases your knowledge of each student's progress and the impact of your instruction.
Systems of Strategic Actions
The twelve systems of strategic actions are clustered into three categories that encompass how readers construct meaning as they process a text:
Thinking Within the Text
The reader processes the information that is provided in the text in order to gain the basic or literal meaning. Thinking within the text enables the reader to understand essential information that the writer wishes to convey.
Thinking Beyond the Text
The reader brings information to the text that is not explicitly there. Thinking beyond the text enables the reader to understand the text more fully by considering what the writer has not stated but implied. Almost all texts require thinking beyond the text for true understanding.
Thinking About the Text
The reader applies analytical thinking to consider and critique the text as an object. Thinking about the text enables the reader to learn more about how texts are structured and crafted by writers. Applying analytic and critical thinking allows the reader to achieve a high level of understanding and enjoyment.
Key Principles
Coherence
Responsive Teaching
Multi-Text Approach
