Fountas & Pinnell Prompting Guide, Part 2 for Comprehension: Thinking, Talking, and Writing

The Fountas & Pinnell Prompting Guide 2, for Comprehension: Thinking, Talking, and Writing contains precise language to use when teaching, prompting for, and reinforcing effective strategic actions in reading and writing. Classroom teachers, reading specialists, literacy teachers, and literacy coaches can use the flip chart as a ready reference while working with students in several instructional setting and contexts.

Fountas and Pinnell provide language for teaching readers how to focus or expand their thinking through talk and writing before, during, and after reading. The goal is to help students think in three broad ways.

1. Thinking Within the Text
Noticing and using the information that is directly stated in the text

2. Thinking Beyond the Text
Noticing what is implied, not explicitly stated

3. Thinking About the Text
Analyzing the writer's craft and thinking critically about the whole text.


The prompts in this flip chart tool are designed to help teachers help teachers demonstrate, prompt for, or reinforce effective reading behaviors related to comprehension including

• Self-monitoring and Self-correcting
• Searching for and Using Meaning
• Summarizing
• Predicting
• Inferring
• Making Connections
• Synthesizing
• Analyzing
• Critiquing

Irene C. Fountas, a professor in the School of Education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been a classroom teacher, language arts specialist, and consultant in school districts across the nation and abroad. She works extensively in the literacy education field and directs the Literacy Collaborative in the School of Education at Lesley University. Together with Gay Su Pinnell she has authored numerous books, videos, and websites with Heinemann that are now considered standards in the field of literacy instruction and staff development. Their latest innovations are The Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention and The Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System, a comprehensive assessment system for grades K-8. Fountas and Pinnell have influenced the classroom practices of teachers nationwide through bestselling books such as: The Fountas & Pinnell Prompting Guide 1 (2008) When Readers Struggle (2008) The Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Book List, K-8+ (2009-2011 Edition, Print Version) The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K-8 (2007) The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K-2 (2007) The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades 3-8 (2007) Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency: Thinking, Talking, and Writing About Reading, K-8 (2006) www.FountasandPinnellLeveledBooks.com Leveled Books, K-8: Matching Texts to Readers for Effective Teaching (2005) Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for All Children (1996) Guiding Readers and Writers: Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy (2001) Interactive Writing: How Language & Literacy Come Together, K-2 (2000) The Primary Literacy Video Collection Series of DVDs: Guided Reading; Classroom Management; and Word Study (2006) Word Matters: Teaching Phonics and Spelling in the Reading/Writing Classroom (1998) The Reader's Notebook Help America Read and Coordinator's Guide (1997) In addition, through Heinemann's firsthand line of classroom materials, Fountas and Pinnell have authored Phonics Lessons (Grades K, 1, and 2), Word Study Lessons (Grade 3), Sing a Song of Poetry, and their corresponding word and picture cards. These materials are used in thousands of classrooms throughout the country. Fountas and Pinnell together present workshops nationwide on a variety of literacy-instruction topics through Heinemann Professional Development.