Gay Su Pinnell is Professor Emeritus in the School of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University. She has extensive experience in classroom teaching and field-based research, and she has developed and implemented comprehensive approaches to literacy education. She has been principle Investigator for two large-scale research projects, two utilizing randomized design. She has worked extensively in clinical tutoring and early intervention for young struggling readers. She received the International Reading Association's Albert J. Harris Award for research in reading difficulties. She also received the Ohio Governor's Award for contributions to literacy education and the Charles A. Dana Foundation Award, given for pioneering contributions in the fields of health and education. She is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame.
Together Gay Su Pinnell and Irene Fountas have authored numerous books, videos, and websites with Heinemann that are now considered standards in the field of literacy instruction and staff development.
They are coauthors numerous professional books for teachers, including:
* Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for All Children (1996)
* Word Matters: Teaching Phonics and Spelling in the Reading/Writing Classroom (1998)
* Interactive Writing: How Language & Literacy come Together, K-2 (2000)
* Guiding Readers & Writers: Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy, 3-8 (2001).
* Teaching for Comprehending & Fluency, Grades K-8: Thinking, Talking, and Writing About Reading (2006)
* Leveled Books K-8: Matching Texts to Readers for Effective Teaching (2006)
* When Readers Struggle, Teaching That Works (2009)
* The Fountas & Pinnell Prompting Guide, Part 1: For Oral Reading Early Writing, K-8 (English edition 2008, Spanish edition, 2009)
* The Continuum of Literacy Learning: A Guide to Teaching (2nd edition, 2011)
* Continuo de adquisición de la lectoescritura: Guia para la enseñanza, PreK-8 (2011)
* Literacy Beginnings: A Prekindergarten Handbook (2011)
* The Fountas & Pinnell Prompting Guide, Part 2 for Comprehension: Thinking,Talking and Writing, K-8 (2011)
* The Continuum of Literacy Learning Teaching Library: Professional Development DVD, Grades PreK-2 (2011)
* The Continuum of Literacy Learning Teaching Library: Professional Development DVD, Grades 3-8 (2011)
Fountas and Pinnell have also published a four-volume set, Phonics Lessons: Letters, Words, and How They Work, for kindergarten, first, second, and third grades. The Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System and its Spanish adaptation, Sistema de evaluación de la lectura, are comprehensive assessment systems for grades K-8 and K-2, respectively, that place students on the Fountas & Pinnell Text Level Gradient™ and connect assessment to instruction with the Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades PreK-8: A Guide to Teaching. Grounded in research and classroom experience, the Continuum names and categorizes behaviors and understandings students can be expected to demonstrate in seven continua. The Continuo is a Spanish adaptation of the Continuum. A recent publication, When Readers Struggle: Teaching that Works, is designed to help teachers work with learners who find reading and writing difficult. It provides the basis for an intensive small-group model of teaching, Leveled Literacy Intervention Systems, also designed by Fountas and Pinnell. Their most recent publications are Literacy Beginnings: A Prekindergarten Continuum to Guide Teaching (Heinemann, 2011) and Genre Study in a Readers' and Writers' Workshop (Heinemann, in press).
