Developed by Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell
Where other assessment and benchmark systems leave you wondering "Now what?", Fountas and Pinnell provide a link from assessment to instruction via The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy Continuum: A Tool for Assessment, Planning, and Teaching, PreK-8. This continuum, along with The Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System, provides the basis for this professional learning opportunity.
The Literacy Continuum describes text characteristics and behavioral goals for prekindergarten through middle school, across the areas pertinent to the language arts. Drawing from this important resource, this professional learning opportunity provides an introduction in how to use the Literacy Continuum to plan for whole class, small group, and individual instruction. Participants will also learn how to use the Literacy Continuum as a bridge to connect assessment data from the Benchmark Assessment to instruction as well as monitoring student progress over time.
Course Goals for One-Day Professional Learning Opportunity:
- Explore the eight continua included in the Literacy Continuum: Interactive Read-Aloud and Literature Discussion; Shared and Performance Reading; Writing About Reading; Writing; Oral and Visual Communication; Technological Communication; Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study; and Guided Reading
- Apply the Literacy Continuum to student work and assessment data to inform instruction in reading and writing
- Explore how to support a writer's development in the areas of craft, conventions and the process of writing.
Course Goals for Two-Day Professional Learning Opportunity:
- The three goals from the above one-day plan
- Learn how to use the Literacy Continuum to help choose appropriate texts for readers across grades and instructional contexts through text analysis and an understanding of text characteristics
- Explore the behaviors and understandings to observe, teach for, and support in getting students to think within, beyond, and about text and how these understandings shift over time.
*Please note that two full days are recommended in order to take full advantage of the Literacy Continuum for your classroom, school and/or district.
