Gay pinnell

Gay Su Pinnell (born June 28, ) is an American educational theorist and a professor emerita at the School of Teaching and Learning at the Ohio State University. Gay Su Pinnell is Professor Emerita in the School of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University and a member of the Reading Hall of Fame.

irene fountas net worth

She has extensive experience in classroom teaching, field-based research, and in developing comprehensive literacy systems. Gay Su Pinnell, professor emerita of The Ohio State University School of Teaching and Learning, and her colleague Irene Fountas created the standards that our educational system abides by today. Ohio State University Professor Emerita Gay Su Pinnell, MA ’68, PhD ’75, has committed $ million from her charitable fund with The Columbus Foundation to the College of Education and Human Ecology — the largest philanthropic contribution made by an individual or foundation in the college’s history.

Renowned educator helps provide stability during uncertain times. When Gay Su Pinnell was a young girl in New Mexico, she taught herself to read by looking through comic books, connecting words with what was happening in the pictures. The education professors double down on a flawed approach that encourages pictures and context to read words. Heinemann — their publisher — faces harsh criticism. November 19, by Emily Hanford and Christopher Peak.

Fountas, a professor at Lesley University in Massachusetts, and Pinnell, professor emeritus at Ohio State, are authors of some of the most widely used instructional materials in American elementary schools, and their approach to teaching reading has held sway for decades. But at the core of their approach is a theory about how people read words that has been disproven by cognitive scientists.

A podcast episode and story by APM Reports helped bring the discrepancy to wide public attention. Since then, Lucy Calkins of Teachers College Columbia, whose work relies on the disproven theory, has admitted she was wrong. But Fountas and Pinnell had remained largely silent until earlier this month, when they released a series of blog posts to address the controversy.

At the center of the controversy are teaching techniques that encourage children to use context, pictures and sentence structure, along with letters, to identify words. Fountas and Pinnell reiterated their allegiance to this approach in their blog. His response is partially correct, but the teacher needs to guide him to stop and work for accuracy.

This is backwards. If the child were actually given better instruction in how to read the words, then it would obviate the need for using all these different kinds of strategies. Seidenberg said the blog posts offered nothing new. Wiley Blevins, a reading specialist who has written numerous books about teaching phonics, compared Fountas and Pinnell to having their feet stuck in concrete. Parents and teachers have been responding to the blog posts on social media, and the discussion has been heated.

Fountas, Pinnell and Heinemann apologized for a comment made by their consultant in one contentious Facebook thread. Seidenberg said many children, not just students with reading disabilities, are harmed when they are taught these strategies. You get reports of children who finally do succeed at reading with this kind of one-hand-tied-behind-your back sort of approach but hate it because it was really onerous.

She was hopeful when the blog series began. The review followed an even more negative evaluation last month of Units of Study, curriculum materials from the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project headed by Calkins, whose work on early reading instruction was influenced by Pinnell. Both reviews focused on shortcomings in how the programs teach foundational reading skills.

His district has long used Fountas and Pinnell and Calkins materials, but — prompted by the national conversation about the science of reading — is adopting a new curriculum. Only four administrators agreed to comment. They all said they would continue to use the program despite the negative review. Michael Laub, superintendent in the North Royalton City School District in Ohio, said the curriculum is a good fit in a district like his where students seem to be learning foundational skills at home from their parents.

Neither responded to requests sent earlier this month. APM Reports also sent an interview request to a Heinemann representative, including a question about why two of their other leading authors, Calkins and Jennifer Serravallo, have admitted mistakes but Fountas and Pinnell have not. A focus on children and on a child-centered approach to education is what moves us forward.

We are committed to remaining in a learning stance.

Heinemann deserves more scrutiny, said Michael Paff, a psychologist in New York who evaluates students struggling to learn to read. Is anybody editing for scientific fact? Paff read the Fountas and Pinnell blog posts and was disappointed.