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To identify the instructional level of reading for students and how to implement instruction to guide reader's development

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Example running record (I forgot to mention this in the recording, you can pause the recording after figure 1 and watch this)

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(Begin by playing this and it will guide you through the presentation)(You can pause after figure 2 and watch the video of the running record)

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Burns, M. K., Pulles, S. M., Maki, K.M., Kanive, R., Hodgson, J., Helman, L.A. . . . Preast, J.L. (2015). Accuracy of student performance while reading leveled books rated at their instructional level by a reading inventory,  Journal of School Psycology, 53(6), 437-445. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.libproxy.lib.ilstu.edu/science/article/pii/S0022440515000709

Craft, Theresa E. (2014).The benefits and limitations of the leveled literacy intervention system, Education and Human Development Master's Theses, Paper 403, 1-75. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1412&context=ehd_theses

"The Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark." (2016). The Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark assessment system. 1-60. Retrieved from http://heinpublishing.http.internapcdn.net/heinpublishing_vitalstream_com/onlineresources/bas/BAS_3rdEdSample.pdf

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Lessons are provided in ordered folders

All of the contents for the lessons are within each folder (scripted lessons, word work, levels books required for lesson, running records, data collection tools, and progress reports)

Words lists (Craft, 2014, p. 30)

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Figure 2

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Some say that the fact that Fountas and Pinnell is scripted and does not allow for the teachers to change what they say and that this limits their own ability to teach (Craft, 2014, p. 3)

Another misuse for Fountas and Pinnell revolves around its use to attempt to raise test scores. The framework used to attempt to raise students tests scores who have "reading challenges" is RTI. This is considered a misuse in terms of the motivation to help students develop stronger reading ability (Craft, 2014, p. 4).

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What Fountas and Pinnell does and does not tell us about the struggling reader and intervention:

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What Fountas and Pinnell does and does not tell us about the struggling reader and intervention:

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Fountas and Pinnell DOES:

Identify struggling readers 54% of the time

Measure "accuracy, oral fluency, and reading comprehension" of struggling readers using two systems one for K-2 and another for 3-8

Provide and instructional reading level for students K-8

The correlation between words read correctly and reading comprehension

Decoding and word recognition correlates to reading comprehension (Burns et al., 2014)

Fountas and Pinnell DOES NOT:

Tell us students prior knowledge that may affect comprehension and familiarity with a text

Always identify struggling readers or identify material that the reader can successfully read (Burns et al., 2014).

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To pinpoint comprehension, accuracy, and fluency of students reading in a documented form with the ability to track progress

Identify the needs of students and how to approach further instruction

Form groups for instruction

Plan efficient instruction

Inform teacher conferences

Moniter student progress

Inform future teachers of students instructional reading level ("Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment," 2015, p.3).

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Students may read inconsistently texts that are leveled the same, e.g. Reading and M level text with 98% accuracy and another M level text with 94% accuracy

"Only about one quarter of the time did the students read 93% to 97% of the words correctly when reading the book that was rated at their instructional level, and students who were struggling reading frequently failed to read at least 93% of the words correctly when the were reading from a book that was designated by an IRI to provide and appropriate level of difficulty" (Burns et al., 2014).

Fountas and Pinnell does not always accurately assign the instructional level (Burns et al., 2014)

When it comes to materials all of the required tools are it the kit but replacement materieals are required eventually, and for areas that do not have financial support this is a diffivult burden (Craft, 2014, p. 30).

Some teachers believe that using a script limits their teacher ability (Craft, 2014, p. 51).

The time required for the lessons is sometimes contradictory to the time allotted leading to difficulty for teachers to use the program with their already busy schedules (Craft, 2014, p. 17).

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It positively impacts students in terms of literacy achievement...using Fountas and Pinnell student were able to increase levels from 1.5 to 5.5 benchmark levels while students who did not receive instruction gained 1 to 3 levels  (Craft, 2014, p.  16)

Word work is used as a part of this system improving students ability to read fluently (Craft, 2014, p. 41).

" Fountas and Pinnell structured the instruction and the way the instruction was delivered to students was a benefit to the student, the teacher, and benefit of the program" (Craft, 2014, p. 51).

The quality of materials is excellent with the kit including everything need to use for assessment and instruction afterwards. Students seem to connect with the texts (Craft, 2014, p. 58-59).

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After completing the assessment, it is time to interpret the data so that the information can best be used within your classroom.
To begin to interpret the data:

First, score the data this means noting the type of text (Fiction or Nonfiction), the level of the text, accuracy, comprehension, if the text result in frustration, instructional, or independent leveling, the self-correction rate, and fluency scoring. This combines all of the data and makes it readily available.

Next, note the types of errors that the student consistently exhibited whether visual, syntactic, or meaning based

Accuracy, fluency, and self-correction rate can be calculated by using page 27

The interpreting of the data begins with an analysis of behavior such as early reading behavior, evaluating the reasoning for errors, solving strategies used by the student, and self-correction. Fountas and Pinnell offers questions to ask yourself as a teacher to help determine why each of these occur (p. 31).

Once you have gathered this data you can consider your students strengths and weaknesses and pinpoint how best to help you student succeed as a reader

This can also help you to determine instructional strategies to use with the student and texts that relate to their level

You can also interpret the kind of errors that they were making and determine focus areas for future lessons

Page 22-35 of this article gives a great case study of how to interpret and utilize the information gathered while using Fountas and Pinnell (You can click on the image and it will take you to the document)("Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment," 2015, p. 22-35).

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It is an assessment tool used to identify a students instruction level and independent reading level in relevance to their system of A through Z leveling.

It uses a combination of formative and summative assessment to gauge reading level and to use to guide instruction ("The Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment," 2016p. 1-2)

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Read Aloud Leveled Texts

A process for analyzing students strengths and weaknesses

The need for coding, scoring,  and interpretation

Running words, number of errors to maintain instructional level, and type of text are all considered when it comes to the analysis of data

Accuracy, fluency, and comprehension are also evaluated

This is evaluated using accuracy rate, self-correction rate, oral reading rate, fluency scores, and comprehension scores

The assessment ends with a portion where the student writes about their reading ("The Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment," 2016, p. 4-13)

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This is an example of an evaluation of a text for miscues, accuracy, and self-correction (Figure 1)

The image below is the leveling guide for frustration, instructional, and independent level (Figure 2)

Figure 1

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Here are the correspondences between the Fountas and Pinnell levels and grade level reading (Figure 3)