Dear George, In response to your question;-these are all New titles, High-quality, leveled books created just for Leveled Literacy Intervention under the guidance of Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell.

Dear Libby, Please click on the Components part on this page to view all available components for individual sale.

The Orange, Green and Blue Systems were designed to accommodate the needs of K, 1 and 2 students respectively, however educators may make other decisions as they work to match the system to the needs of particular readers. The books and lessons in the Blue System begin with Level C and continue to Level N (refer to the F&P A-Z Text Level Gradient). As in the Orange and Green Systems, lessons in the Blue System provide specific instruction in phonics, word work, comprehension, and writing. The Blue System will be helpful to second and third graders who are reading below grade level. The Blue System may also be used to help children at higher grade levels who are reading below Level N. It has also been effectively used with special education children for whom the activities meet the educational program specifications. We will look into putting the figure on "Management of LLI groups" on the website for your reference. Best, Gay & Irene

Do you need to move through the LLI kits sequentially or can you pin point difficult areas and begin with those phonics lessons & books?

The sequence of phonics and books in LLI is very carefully designed to provide increasing support to readers; however, teachers have decisions to make.

1. You would begin to finding the student`s instructional reading level and start there in the sequence. In other words, you do not have to begin with level A for the Orange and Green Systems or with level C for the Blue System. You could, for example, begin with Level J if that is appropriate. You would then move in order, except for points 2 and 3 below.

2. If you find that students are reading very well and know the phonics principles, and you think that they do not need to read so many books on the level, you can skip books. (Be sure that they can apply the phonics principles.)

3. If students are finding the books and phonics principles very easy, you can skip an entire level.

4. If students reach grade level, you do not have to finish the series. Just discontinue the LLI program and let students continue to learn from good classroom instruction.

How does it work with older students?

We have had success in helping a range of students who need to learn to read up to level N. Special education teachers and reading teachers have used the program and helped older students to increase reading ability. Something to consider is the content of the material and the age appropriateness of the texts. In general, they would be better for students in grade 3. The informational texts could be used with students who are older than grade 3. Teachers would need to make decisions after looking at the texts on this website.

You would not want to use the text reading assessment for the Benchmark Assessment System as often as every two weeks.  You can; however, select optional assessments that will also provide valuable information (see Benchmark Assessment System).  On this website, you will find expectation charts that will be useful for RtI progress monitoring.  Another strategy is to take regular running records or reading records using leveled books.  You can take these records as a regular, integral part of small group instruction or intervention groups.  The schedule below indicates the way one school district has made this practice operational. 

Dear Lynda, The LLI teaching will fit well with the theoretical foundation of Literacy Collaborative and Reading Recovery and will be highly effective with second language learners and many special education students. There may be a few special education students who after evaluation may need a specialized approach that differs from LLI.

Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention has been developed over a five-year period during which it was implemented in 70 districts in 15 states. Read the Research Base for this ground-breaking Intervention System.

Click here to read the Research Base

Dear Angie We are happy to hear of your work with your colleagues and your commitment to low achieving readers. We look forward to seeing you in Chicago. We are in he process of development of an intervention for beyond level N but will not be ready to distribute it for about two years. Stay in touch

Dear Kim Thanks for your comments! We do encourage you to find short texts you can use to continue the students progress beyond level N using the same LLI lesson structure you have been using. We are in the process of piloting new structures for children beyond level N and hope to have books developed of the same quality as our new system. So stay tuned! Our best, Irene and Gay

Dear Peter, LLI can be implemented as a tier one, two or three intervention and various school districts have made their plans in different ways. A classroom teacher can provide more intensive small group instruction with LLI. The most common use is as a supplementary tier two or three intervention as it involves close diagnostic work for the short term. You will find many RTI documents on the website so you can review various options. Our best

It was nice to hear from you and also to learn of the work you are doing in South Australia. You might want to start with some of the very practical chapters. In our experience, establishing the management system helps a great deal. Once students know the routines, then teachers can concentrate on their instruction. Chapter 6 has a great many practical suggestions for organizing and managing time, space, and resources. Chapter 9 actually takes them through the first 20 days of reading workshop. This system truly works and many young teachers have told us that it was very helpful in getting started in an orderly way. They usually use more than 20 days, but this series of minilessons really works. Incidentally, the book Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency, K-8: Thinking, Talking, and Writing about Reading, also from Heinemann builds on both Guided Reading (primary) and the text you are using. That book has an accompanying DVD with all kinds of teaching examples on it plus materials to print out. In it you will find the first 35 days of Book Clubs/Literature Discussion. Once the reading workshop is well established and students know to select books, read silently, and write in their Readers` Notebooks, then it is easy for the teacher to pull together small groups for guided reading and/or literature discussion. The more teachers can work together and help each other, the smoother it will all go. They can share minilessons and text sets for read aloud. Interactive read aloud is the foundation on which everything else is built, so another thing to do is meet in the school library and put together some "text sets." (These are books linked by theme, content, author, illustrator, or anything else. It is beneficial to students to hear several connected sets read aloud; it helps them to make connections. You`ll find an extensive list of text sets on the DVD with Teaching for Comprehension and Fluency. We wish you the very best in all of this work! Keep us posted! Gay and Irene

You need to use your 50 minutes to serve more than 3 children, so that does pose a dilemma. Here are some options: Serve 2 groups of LLI children,alternating time for each, for example: Option 1. Day 1--30 minutes for 1 group and 20 for the other, then switching on Day 2. Option 2. Serve a higher level group (for example grade 1 or 2) for 30 minutes and a lower level group for 20 every day. Sometimes lessons from Orange (levels A to C only) can be accomplished in less time if you are really disciplined. Option 3. Serve 2 groups, 25 minutes each, varying the elements that you cut a bit short. You could have students do some extra rereading or word work in the classroom in addition to the classroom and home options. Option 4. For a group you are serving only 20 or 25 minutes, actively enlist the help of a classroom assistant or parent to help the child do more rereading (take-home books) or writing. Option 5. Serve 1 group for 30 minutes a day over a period of time, picking up a group that you plan 20 minute lessons (sometimes doing "catch up" every 4th day. Over time, 1 group leaves and the 2nd group can be put into the 30 minute slot. Just realize that when you are serving groups a shorter amount of time, progress will be a bit slower, but if you use a timer and are very efficient, you will still see results. Best, Gay & Irene

LLI is an intervention system. It is designed to be used with readers who need extra help to learn to read up to level N (first part of grade 3). It can be used with any kind of literacy curriculum, but it is certainly compatible with a balanced approach since each 30-minute lesson includes a great deal of reading continuous texts (really good books!), phonics/word study, and writing about reading. There is an intensive focus on teaching comprehension, but you will also find daily phonics lessons. In the guide you will find plans for implementing LLI wihtin a layered, comprehensive literacy curriculum. Teachers use lesson guides with 300 specifically designed lessons to guide teaching. The system has a management CD that makes it easy to track progress. Students` scores on text reading would be taken and record every 6 days (for a group of 3). You will also be advised on "check up" assessment of phonics skills and word knowledge. Go to this website for information: fountasandpinnellleveledliteracyintervention.com. Soon, there will be specific RtI information on the site. Right now, for RtI charts and designs, see fountasandpinnellbenchmarkassessment.com. Our Best, Gay & Irene

We suggest that you look carefully at the Benchmark Assessment instructional level assessment. Then review the optional assessments that you can use for diagnosis. Use these assessments to diagnose the particular areas you will need to support in your teaching at the instructional level. Since you are working closely with a small group you can attend to the individual needs of the students. Our best to you in your work. Irene and Gay

Levels are a teacher’s tool for providing effective instruction. We designed these levels to support appropriate teaching so that students are able to “learn on the text.” Of course, each child is an individual reader and will process text differently from one another even at the same level, so teachers need to differentiate teaching within small groups. We understand your concern about the overuse of levels as they are meant to be a guide to effective instruction. One needs to go beyond the level to look at how the child processes text. We think you will find our book The Continuum of Literacy Learning: A Guide To Teaching an effective tool for sharing the wide range of competencies needed for each guided reading level. Go to www.fountasandpinnellbenchmarkassessment.com to look at sample pages. These may be helpful in sharing with your administrator that it is not only the level, but the competencies at the level, that are important to achieve. Hope this helps. Our best, Irene and Gay

The focus of Phonics/Word Work is on developing strong control of letter and sound knowledge, or phonemic awareness. The Letter/Word Work portion of the lesson focuses on “hands on” work to learn about how print works. Here, children work with things like name puzzles, magnetic letters, letter/word/and picture cards. The Letter/Word Work portion of the even-numbered lessons is optional. See the Word Analysis charts at the back of the Program Guide and the Reading Continuum section at the back of each level tab in your Lesson Guide for details about the specific skills taught in LLI.

Thank you for your kind comments. We are pleased that you are as excited as we are about the potential of LLI for struggling children. We did check our Continuum of Literacy Learning against the Texas standards as well as many other states but did not create a document. We believe you will find the Continuum exceeds the expectations. Our best, Irene and Gay

Dear Jennifer, Beginning and ending grade level expectations are based on typical levels at each time period. They are consistent with state standards. If they are met, then student should be assured of making adequate progress across grades. (Note, that text levels are based not only on accuracy but on satisfactory comprehension.) Expectations at time points within grade levels have been created for the purposes of RtI monitoring. They provide a guide for constantly checking to see whether students are making satisfactory progress towards the end-of-year goal. This progress monitoring gives the teacher information on when and how much intervention might be needed. The percentage of students at each tier will vary greatly depending on the overall achievement in the school. We do not have numbers because of this variation. However, your expectation should be that when you have excellent classroom instruciton and layers of effective interventions in place, about 80% of the students will fall into tier 1; that is; they will make sufficient progress with good classroom instruction. About 20% would need intervention (possibly a choice of several tier 2 interventikons); and only about 5% would need intentisve tier 3 interventions. When you are initially developing your literacy program, you may find many more students needing intervention. As you work together over time, you should find that the percentages change. Our best, Gay & Irene.