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Posted By: Mamabear Fountis and Pinnel Reading Program? - 06/10/11 06:11 PM
Our district started using this a couple of years ago and I am curious if anyone has experience with it. I have looked at their website and such, but I am looking really for folks who have opinions based on experience with the program.
Isn't that guided reading by Scholastic? Our school uses it...
Posted By: Mamabear Re: Fountis and Pinnel Reading Program? - 06/10/11 07:33 PM
yes it is. Just wondering if folks are happy with the levels, the "tests" etc.
The only issue I see is proper placement. My dd7 just finished first grade. She was in a reading group with second graders. The pace was too slow for her.. the other girls only wanted to read a chapter each night whereas dd7 would finish the book in 2 days. They started the year on level j and completed the year on o. The group remained constant.. there was no movement from goup to group. In kinder, there was movements as some kids wee progressing quicker but not this year.

Sheila
Posted By: Mamabear Re: Fountis and Pinnel Reading Program? - 06/10/11 09:40 PM
Sheila,
Thanks for your observation. I agree with you.
Posted By: Taminy Re: Fountis and Pinnel Reading Program? - 06/16/11 01:35 AM
Fountis and Pinell is pretty decent in many ways. I haven't used their system, but am familiar with it, and their general approach is grounded in higher level types of comprehension (inference and synthesis vs. recall/literal comprehension).

Originally Posted by frannieandejsmom
The only issue I see is proper placement. My dd7 just finished first grade. She was in a reading group with second graders. The pace was too slow for her.. the other girls only wanted to read a chapter each night whereas dd7 would finish the book in 2 days. They started the year on level j and completed the year on o. The group remained constant.. there was no movement from goup to group. In kinder, there was movements as some kids wee progressing quicker but not this year.

I think the issue you raise is an important one, but not related to the reading system/materials per se. Gifted readers should not be part of paced reading instruction--breaking a book up into little artificial chunks and waiting for everyone to be ready to discuss it simply doesn't work for these children. By the time everyone else is ready to talk about it, our voracious little readers have already devoured umpteen other books that they'd rather talk about, and they probably don't even care about the little chunk of the group book they read two days ago. Or, they secretly read ahead and have to be silent during discussions because they are worried about referring to information from the wrong part of the book. Either way, it's a bad match. Our education system has to get better at recognizing that reading level and reading ability are not the same thing. I would argue that level is just a part of ability. Ability is really a triangulation of level(fluency and comprehension), pace and appetite.
Posted By: CAMom Re: Fountis and Pinnel Reading Program? - 06/16/11 01:58 AM
My son's school uses this system and I'd have to say, it works pretty well for a system. However, it's the implementation that can be concerning!

DS's school goes until the kid is done with the test- either reaches a max level or just gives up. However, I've heard many many other schools won't go beyond one year above grade level. We've had friends whose first graders were not allowed to test beyond "J". That wouldn't have worked for my 1st grader who tested at "U" when the year started!

DS's school also used readinga-z material for their in class books. These worked out well because 1st graders with very high reading levels would still finish the guided reading in one week. I think it made differentiation easier for the teacher to have it broken down that way. Nobody was reading a chapter book for a month while others were still in BOB books.
Posted By: jenbrdsly Re: Fountis and Pinnel Reading Program? - 07/21/11 04:46 PM
I am a teacher who was trained in Foutins and Pinnel. Here's my post about why I love it:

http://teachingmybabytoread.blog.com/2011/03/01/the-three-types-of-reading/

The principal of Guided Reading groups should work great for gifted kids who are mainstreamed in a classroom, because the idea is to make sure that each kid is in the correct Guided Reading Leveled group. The problem with the dd7 first grader reading with second graders is that she really should have been reading up in the third grade or fourth grade class. It sounds like the teacher did not have her at the right level.

You can figure out on your own what Guided Reading Level your child should be on, (although really, the teacher should be constantly assessing this and telling you). Here's how: http://teachingmybabytoread.blog.com/2011/03/01/guided-reading-levels

Once you know what level your kid should be at, you can double check that he/she is in the right group.
Jrn,
Thank you for those links!

Dd7 will have a new teacher this year (she is in a multi grade 1/2 classroom). She is in second grade now so we shall see how much I like the multi grade now . I LOVED it in first grade. Ds5 is another story. I have been trying to figure out what his reading level is. He is far ahead of where dd was at the same age in math but not quite sure about reading. He doesn't seem to enjoy reading yet whereas at this point she was asking to stay up to read.


Off for 2 weeks and then I will look at those links more closely
Sheila
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