I am beginning to learn so much about Fountas & Pinnell. It seems like book access is not just a problem here, but a problem in any district using F&P. I thought it was just our district that caps access to books - but actually in reading through the F&P materials, it is the company itself that seems to advocate capping assessments - and hence, book access. In reading through the "teachers lounge" area of the forum - the teachers are asking what to do with their advanced readers and they are being told that they should "grade their assessments more rigorously!" (their emphasis, not mine) and have the student read more broadly at the assigned F&P grade level. The assessment itself is highly subjective, so a student might read and comprehend a text perfectly well - but they can be "rigorously scored" on their ability to draw inferences "beyond the text". Of course, the text they provide is so flat, I think I would be challenged to take anything away from the text at all.
They way they get away with showing progress is by setting the test ceiling artificially low in September when the assessments are "rigorously scored", raising the test ceiling slightly in December, then raising it slightly more for the end of the year. Voila- everyone makes a year of progress in a year. Gifted readers screw up the whole system if they are allowed to begin the year at too high a level.
I think the only way to get an accurate assessment would be to go outside of the school district, and who knows if they would even accept that anyway.
I have a meeting set up with the teacher, but I am feeling a little bit stuck. If this is the school/district policy - I would assume she has had this conversation probably dozens of times with many, many parents over the years. I am guessing the conversation will go something like this: "I have tested your daughter, and she did very well. She passed her baseline assessment. But, I think she is having difficulty with "drawing references beyond the text". I will work with her over the next few weeks and I will test her again at the next level"... October goes by, November goes by and just when it is time for her to move up as per district policy - surprise, surprise - it is time for a new test. Meanwhile, she is still reading several years below her actual ability level. This is CRAZY!
