Fountas & Pinnell Classroom (FPC)

Lift students’ learning beyond the walls of the classroom with texts and a blueprint for teaching that create authentic experiences in reading, thinking, talking, writing, and reflecting to realize what it truly means to live a literate life.

Whether you are a new teacher or one with years of experience, FPC both relies upon and contributes to your expertise as a teacher. The extensive professional learning tools woven into FPC help you develop your craft, strengthen instructional decision-making, and deliver high-impact literacy instruction.

Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ (FPC) is a cohesive, multi-text approach to literacy instruction for all students in grades PreK–6. This systemic approach to classroom-based literacy instruction consists of books, classroom library collections, lessons folders, conferring cards, minilessons, and professional learning tools.

FPC is designed to support whole-group, small-group and independent learning opportunities including:

Whole-Group Teaching

Small-Group Teaching

Independent Learning

Independent Reading

Your classroom is a place where children learn how to read, write, and expand all of their language skills, but it is much more. It is a place where they learn how to be confident, self-determined, curious, kind, and literate members of a community.

teacher-and-kids — System Guide

Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ provides the opportunity for children to:

see themselves reflected in the books they read and write about

grow as thoughtful users of literacy

engage in real reading, writing, and thinking

and for teachers to:

work at the cutting edge of children’s learning

support independence and student agency

understand the critical role of responsive teaching in leading literacy learning forward.

Interactive Read-Aloud

The very best age-appropriate, grade-appropriate trade books promote the joy of reading, expand vocabulary, and nurture the ability to think, talk, and write about texts that fully engage students’ interests.

120 titles per grade

PreK–6 Lesson folder per title

Shared Reading

An exquisite collection of original texts (Big Books and accompanying little book versions) that nurture students’ ability to construct meaning in a supported context so they can enjoy reading and learn critical concepts of how texts work.

200 titles spanning grades PreK–3

Lesson folder per title

Guided Reading

The most powerful and engaging authentic, original texts to build each student’s ability to process increasingly challenging books with fluency and comprehension. Build a rich guided reading collection over time with:

50 titles per level A–Z on the F&P Text Level Gradient™

Lesson folder per title

Independent Reading

A carefully curated collection of authentic children’s literature that provides the opportunity for students to develop tastes as readers and to read a large number of self-selected books independently. With accompanying context cards, you can make specific teaching points in brief conferences that lead the individual reader forward.

150 titles per grade K–2

200 titles per grade 3–6

Conferring card per title

Book Clubs

An authentic opportunity to bring students together for in-depth discussion of a captivating trade book they have read to extend thinking and learn about themselves as readers.

32 titles per grade K–3

48 titles per grade 4–6

Facilitator card per title

Phonics, Spelling and Word Study

Explicit lessons for whole-group instruction and small-group application that help students explore, attend to, learn about, and efficiently use sounds, letters, and words.

Reading Minilessons

Short, concise, explicit, inquiry-based lessons about a principle that students can apply to their own independent reading. Growing out of the interactive read-aloud experience and linked to independent reading, teachers use many of these texts as examples from which they generalize the understanding.

Writing Minilessons

Brief, focused, explicit lessons that help children/students understand and expand on the characteristics of effective writing and nurture their ability to write with purpose, imagination and voice.

book-1 — Turning a vision into action requires a carefully laid out plan. You may be asking yourself, “Where do I start?” With a pen in hand, start here, in this action plan, thinking together with colleagues. The 4 steps in this **Interactive Action Plan** are designed to put you, your students, and your school on the path to literacy success.

Download Interactive Action Plan

book-2 — For detailed guidance on unpacking your system, setting up your resources, and organizing your classroom, download the **FPC Interactive Unpacking and Implementation Plan.**

Download Interactive Implementation Plan

Explore the Fountas & Pinnell Literacy Continuum

Proficient readers and writers display recognizable behaviors at every stage of literacy learning. When teachers notice, teach, and support these behaviors, they link assessment to responsive teaching. This indispensable literacy tool identifies the behaviors that demonstrate thinking and understanding within, beyond, and about a text. These behaviors are described as continua of learning across eight instructional contexts.

Explore what the *Fountas & Pinnell Literacy Continuum* is, what’s included, how it’s implemented, and gain access to samplers, research, webinars, and more.

Learn More

FPC Research

Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell are committed to the important role of research in the development and ongoing evaluation of Fountas & Pinnell Classroom (FPC).

See all FPC Research Base