Time once again for “Doin’ the Math” with Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell.

Assuming your elementary school has only a single section each of grades K through 6, buying the bare minimum resources to implement Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI) will cost about $30,000.

That’s based on an average of $4200 per class x 7 classes. Here’s the grade 3 price:

In the US alone, there are 90,000 elementary schools, making the total potential market for these materials $2,610,000,000. But it’s worth it right? These materials have been validated in an “independent GOLD STANDARD study” according to @HeinemannPub and @FountasPinnell.

Gold Standard? Not exactly. Start listening to this @Reading_League video at the 51 minute mark. The speaker is Steven Dykstra, a psychologist and an expert on statistical studies. Make some popcorn; you’ll enjoy it better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3107&v=zS7ice-_mwE&feature=emb_logo

Parents and taxpayers – this is your money being wasted on over-priced materials that have NO PROVEN RECORD of actually working. Did you know that two out of three 8th graders in the US are NOT proficient readers? See here:
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ 

I have one positive thing to say about the @FountasPinnell, @LucyCalkins, @JSerravallo, @HeinemannPub money-making machine: Irene Fountas has a cute dog named Meli. Are there really teachers out there who read a blog called “Ask Meli”? Check it out here: https://fpblog.fountasandpinnell.com/tag/ask-meli