Teachers
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Fountas and Pinnell FAQ's
1. How can you determine a student's independent, instructional, and hard level?
Independent Level for A-K: 95-100% accuracy and excellent or satisfactory comprehension
Instructional Level for A-K: 90-94% accuracy and excellent or satisfactory comprehension OR 95-100% accuracy with limited comprehension
Hard Level A-K: accuracy below 90%
2. If a child consistently reads the word "cafe" for calf, and the word appears six times in the text, how many errors should be counted?
Cafe for calf 6 times means 6 errors. It doesn't matter if the word is in the child's vocabulary. You are noting how the child takes words apart while reading and gaining insight into their use of visual information. This will provide valuable information for you to plan your word work. It may also give you information on how they use meaning - calf certainly would make more sense than cafe when reading about animals. You can take this into account when analyzing the reading record. If a repeated error occurs and takes the child to the frustration or hard level, you may make the decision to continue to the next level to see how the child does on the next level. ONLY proper nouns repeatedly misread are counted as one error.
3. If a child read the, "Mrs." as "Ms." in a name, is this counted as an error? Can we correct this the first time being that it is a name?
If the child reads Ms Brown for Mrs Brown, it would be counted as an error the first time and not again throughout the text. Any time a proper noun is misread, it is counted as an error only the first time, but we continue to record what the child says throughout the text. If the child stops at an unknown word and does not go on, or appeals at the point of an unknown word, then we can give a told. We can not interrupt a child's reading and give a told without an appeal or a stop because that would be considered teaching during an assessment. Instead, our goal is to observe to see if the child notices/self monitors and self corrects. Those are strategic behaviors we want to see happening as children process text.
4. Why Analyze Meaning, Structure, and Visual Errors and Self Corrects?
Readers often make substitutions that indicate they are thinking about the meaning of the text. For example a reader may say ballet for dance.
Ask yourself: Did the meaning of the text influence the error? Does the substitution make sense? Does it make sense in the story?
Structure
Readers often substitute nouns for nouns or verbs for verbs, indicating an awareness of the structure of language. For example, a reader may say We like going for We like to ride.
Ask yourself: Does the error fit an acceptable English language structure? Did structure influence the error? Does it sound right?
Visual
Readers use the visual features of print, the letters and words, to read. For example, looking at the picture a reader may say park for play.
Ask yourself: Did the visual information from the print influence the error (letter, part, word)? Does it look right?
5. What’s not an error in scoring?
(see links for sources)
Independent Level for A-K: 95-100% accuracy and excellent or satisfactory comprehension
Instructional Level for A-K: 90-94% accuracy and excellent or satisfactory comprehension OR 95-100% accuracy with limited comprehension
Hard Level A-K: accuracy below 90%
2. If a child consistently reads the word "cafe" for calf, and the word appears six times in the text, how many errors should be counted?
Cafe for calf 6 times means 6 errors. It doesn't matter if the word is in the child's vocabulary. You are noting how the child takes words apart while reading and gaining insight into their use of visual information. This will provide valuable information for you to plan your word work. It may also give you information on how they use meaning - calf certainly would make more sense than cafe when reading about animals. You can take this into account when analyzing the reading record. If a repeated error occurs and takes the child to the frustration or hard level, you may make the decision to continue to the next level to see how the child does on the next level. ONLY proper nouns repeatedly misread are counted as one error.
3. If a child read the, "Mrs." as "Ms." in a name, is this counted as an error? Can we correct this the first time being that it is a name?
If the child reads Ms Brown for Mrs Brown, it would be counted as an error the first time and not again throughout the text. Any time a proper noun is misread, it is counted as an error only the first time, but we continue to record what the child says throughout the text. If the child stops at an unknown word and does not go on, or appeals at the point of an unknown word, then we can give a told. We can not interrupt a child's reading and give a told without an appeal or a stop because that would be considered teaching during an assessment. Instead, our goal is to observe to see if the child notices/self monitors and self corrects. Those are strategic behaviors we want to see happening as children process text.
4. Why Analyze Meaning, Structure, and Visual Errors and Self Corrects?
- to inform teaching
- to find out specific information about individual readers
- to be able to discuss with colleagues the evidence of the process the student is using when reading
Readers often make substitutions that indicate they are thinking about the meaning of the text. For example a reader may say ballet for dance.
Ask yourself: Did the meaning of the text influence the error? Does the substitution make sense? Does it make sense in the story?
Structure
Readers often substitute nouns for nouns or verbs for verbs, indicating an awareness of the structure of language. For example, a reader may say We like going for We like to ride.
Ask yourself: Does the error fit an acceptable English language structure? Did structure influence the error? Does it sound right?
Visual
Readers use the visual features of print, the letters and words, to read. For example, looking at the picture a reader may say park for play.
Ask yourself: Did the visual information from the print influence the error (letter, part, word)? Does it look right?
5. What’s not an error in scoring?
- Self-Corrections
- Appeals without Tolds
- Repetition of previously read proper nouns
- Immature/Dialectic pronunciation
- Spelling if pronounced correctly
(see links for sources)
Persuasive Writing (Essay)
- blog post about literary essays from Two Reflective Teachers
- chart comparing literary and personal essays (from Two Reflective Teachers)
- chart: We Can Write a Literary Essay About... (from The Teacher Studio)
- linking words (from here)
Informational Writing |
- Leads- "Informational Grabbers" (from here)
- Smore-acronym to remember components of informational writing (from here)
- Avoiding Plagiarism-great link for upper elementary here
- Text Features- great chart idea (from here)
- Write Like a Scientist (from here)
- Identifying Reliable Sources and Citing Them- This is a blog post that can help with the research component of your information writing unit. This link includes four lesson plans designed to teach students how to find reliable sources and avoid plagiarism. Within the lesson plans there are links to BrainPop videos and Smart board files.
Launching the Writer's Workshop
- Generating Ideas
- Partnerships
- Select a Small Moment
- Leads
- Endings
- Revise-Explode a Moment
- Revise vs. Edit (from this site)
- Conferring
Here are my notes from Sami Passo's workshop on mini lessons.
Reader's Workshop Resources K-2
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Reader's Workshop Resources 3-5Angela Bunyi's Reading and Writing Workshop blog post (3rd grade, but lots of ideas here for all grades)
What Reader's Workshop looks like in Beth Newingham's classroom (3rd grade again, but applicable to many grades) Conferring is the heart of reader's workshop! Here are some resources that can help you with this.
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