The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K-8: Behaviors and Understandings to Notice, Teach, and Support

Gay Su Pinnell and Irene Fountas understand that a high-quality curriculum is the important first step toward good teaching and successful learning. Good curriculum comes from knowing what students can do, can almost do, and need to learn how to do as readers, writers, and language users. In The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K - 8 they combine everything they have learned about literacy development to create a powerful tool that enables curriculum coordinators and literacy specialists to observe teaching and learning, to plan responsive instruction, and to ensure consistency across buildings, grades, or classrooms.

 

Across the Grades

The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K - 8 places the behaviors and understandings children can be expected to demonstrate on continua that reflect seven critical instructional contexts: 

 

Level by Level

The first six continua are organized by grade, while the guided reading milestones are laid out level-by-level along Pinnell and Fountas' A - Z gradient to facilitate reading instruction at the precise level at which it is most appropriate to support new learning.

 

This helpful representation of goals for literacy growth make it easy to analyze whether curriculum goals are aligned among grades, buildings, or districts. They can serve as a foundation for the creation of responsive, flexible curriculum documents. And, they present the information in Pinnell and Fountas' Continua for grades K - 2 and 3 - 8 in a different organization that enables literacy specialists and coaches to effectively communicate commonly shared expectations that are grounded in research and expressed as teaching practices. In fact, they provide numerous opportunities for conversations with teachers about:

 

Discover the convenient, easy-to-read resource that supports every aspect of your curriculum by presenting a unified vision of language and literacy development. Read The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K - 8 and discover the key to a new standard for excellence in literacy education.