Springfield schools to use Fountas and Pinnell readers in K-5 classes

By JEFF EPSTEIN
[email protected]
SPRINGFIELD, Vt. — The town school district has selected a commercial instruction product to teach reading in kindergarten through fifth grade, and school officials hope it will meet the needs of children, teachers and administrators.

The product chosen, Fountas and Pinnell Classroom, by the Heinemann company, was presented Monday evening at the school board’s regular meeting by David Cohn, the director of curriculum, instruction and assessment, and Andie Bentley, the K-5 in-house instructional coach, providing support to teachers.

Fountas and Pinnell Classroom was one of two finalists examined by a focus group of teachers and administrators. The other product considered was Lucy Calkins Units of Study.

The plan is to roll out the new curriculum next September in the Elm Hill Primary School (grades K-2) and the Union Street Elementary School (grades 3-5).

The product (actually designed for use up to sixth grade) will provide a common resource and baseline for reading instruction, while allowing teachers some customization and creativity, Bentley and Cohn said. 

The product provides classroom with individual reading materials for each child, and a curriculum for teachers to cover reading units with a variety of instructional methods. But part of the program is also letting students read regular books from home or the library.

Having a common resource across all K-5 classrooms is important, said Cohn. “Teachers without a common resource were picking and pulling from a variety of resources,” said Cohn.

Cohn described the cost of Fountas and Pinnell as “pricey” at $210,000, which covers materials for all K-5 classrooms. However, no money will come from the district, he said, as the cost is fully covered by Title I federal funds. 

Part of the “evidence-based instruction,” Cohn said, is devoting 90-120 minutes a day to reading instruction, a figure greeted by some in the meeting audience with skepticism.

However, Cohn explained, that time is not a single bloc of asking children to sit still. The curriculum uses a variety of different methods, such as read-alouds, participatory reading, phonics units, small group learning and one-to-one instruction, all designed to help teachers figure out each child’s reading level and progress.

Fountas and Pinnell Classroom “meets all of these evidence-based practices,” said Bentley.

Teachers are already using these different kinds of instruction, but doing so without a common resource makes it hard to see progress across classrooms and teachers, said Cohn.

To help explain the product, Cohn and Bentley showed a video from the vendor showing the Fountas and Pinnell product in use. The video showed teachers using the materials in each of the different types of instruction. Children shown in the video were calm, engaged and participatory.

In response to a question about the product’s track record, Cohn said that Fountas and Pinnell Classroom is new, and Springfield would be a pioneer in creating a track record for it. 

“The program is something teachers have been asking for,” said Cohn.

The district tests academic proficiency with federal, state and local assessments. Another product of this brand, the Fountas & Pinnell Text Level Assessment, is in use for local assessments in grades 1-4, according to the district. 

However, state assessments called Common Core are key, and the one the district uses in most primary grades is the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). District scores for 2017 SBAC assessments are available from grade 3 up, and the 2017 figures show 34 percent of grade 3 at or above the basic proficiency standard (“Level 3”), where the state average was 49 percent. For grade 4, 25 percent of students hit the proficiency mark where the state average was 49 percent. For grade 5, 33 percent were at Level 3, against the state average of 55 percent.