Developed by Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell
Teachers will examine the critical elements of comprehension involving readers, texts, and teaching as they study Fountas and Pinnell's important resource, Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency. They will gain an understanding of the components of an effective literacy program and how they translate into whole group, small group, and individual instruction in both the primary and intermediate grades. This seminar provides an exploration of how students think within, beyond, and about the text to process the full meaning of a text. Teachers will acquire a basic understanding of how all experiences and instruction within the literacy framework is grounded in the reading process.
Course goals:
- Take an in-depth look at teaching for comprehending and fluency throughout the literacy framework from grades K–8
- Explore how to support readers in developing systems of strategic actions for sustaining and expanding their thinking within, beyond and about text
- Learn how to design reading mini-lessons to maximize independent reading and help students think within, beyond and about their reading
- Explore the six dimensions of fluency and how to support fluent and disfluent readers as they read increasingly challenging texts
- Think about how to use shared and performed reading to promote fluent oral processing of text
- Learn how to use interactive read aloud to engage students in thinking and talking about texts as a foundation for literature discussion and writing about reading
- Use the gradient of text to match books to readers for guided reading
- Observe how teachers use guided reading to teach for effective processing across a variety of genres and increasingly challenging texts
- Discover ways to deepen comprehension through writing about reading in a variety of genres.
