Publisher Information

Dear Publishers:

We have transitioned our leveling services to an on-line leveling process. As a result we are no longer accepting physical books into the book room for leveling.

Our new on-line leveling process enables our leveling team to read and level the books via a web-interface, as well as work collaboratively from remote locations. This will speed up the leveling process going forward. In addition, we are now able to capture more pertinent data on each book and ultimately share this information, as well as the official F&P Text Level Gradientâ„¢, with educators and resellers.

Click here for more information on how to create a publisher account and submit PDF files of books for review by our leveling team.

Thank you for your interest in the only official service for books leveled by Fountas & Pinnell—the most trusted and widely used leveling philosophy in our schools.

The Fountas & Pinnell Leveling Team

Publisher Benefits

Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Books Website is the only official website where Publishers can have their books meticulously leveled by the Fountas & Pinnell leveling team, according to their F&P Text Level Gradientâ„¢.

The Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Books Website is the number one destination for educators, publishers and re-sellers when they need to know, with reliability, the accurate Fountas & Pinnell text level of a book.

The Fountas & Pinnell team is committed to:

  • Aggressively growing the database beyond 50,000 leveled titles
  • Expanding the breadth and depth of publishers and titles available through the database
  • Enhancing the functionality and usability of the website for all users

New & Improved Features for publishers include:

  • A NEW streamlined title submission process, including ONIX feed or Excel file capabilities
  • NEW tracking capabilities that show the status of a title as, 'received', 'pending leveling', 'leveled', or 'not suitable for leveling'.
  • NEW export features that will allow publishers to capture leveling information on their titles
  • Improved customer support

Publisher Benefits Include:

  • Use of the official F&P Text Level Gradient™ citation and/or insignia on marketing collateral
  • Access to the NEW publisher/levelers interface, greatly enhancing the capacity to level more titles
  • On-line submission of PDFs and files—eliminating shipping costs and reducing leveling time
  • Assurance that a team of Fountas & Pinnell-trained levelers will continue to analyze each title in full and follow a comprehensive hands-on process for recommending a text level based on the F&P Text Level Gradient™ before the level is reviewed and approved by Fountas and Pinnell themselves.
  • Assurance that pre-published titles and electronic files for books will remain confidential and will be used for the sole purpose of reviewing and leveling the title.
  • Enhanced technical support including easy access to Excel files of your leveled titles

The Publisher fee for leveling is $30 per book. Each book will be reviewed by the leveling team before being assigned an F&P Text Level Gradient™ by Gay Su Pinnell or Irene Fountas.

Click here for more information on how to create a publisher account and submit PDF files of books for review by our leveling team.

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What features do you look at when you "level" a book?

Leveling is a complex process: one text may be challenging because of certain features, and another text may be challenging for different features. A text with simple words and concepts may be made harder or easier by factors such as length, layout, and print size. On the other hand, a text that "looks easy" because it has few lines of text and big print may be quite challenging because of the vocabulary and the difficulty or number of the concepts included.

The ten features evaluated in the leveling process include: Genre/Form, Text Structure, Content, Themes and Ideas, Language and Literary, Features, Sentence Complexity, Vocabulary, Words, Illustrations, and Book and Print Features. For a more detailed description of the considerations used in leveling, see Ten Text Characteristics for Guided Reading.

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What types of books should be submitted for leveling?

Fountas & Pinnell leveled books move beyond traditional readability formulas that consider a limited number of factors. Because of this, the Fountas & Pinnell Text Level Gradient™ provides a framework to assist teachers in providing instruction that allows students to develop a strong reading processing system on increasingly complex texts across the grades.

Books submitted for leveling should be appropriate for use during small group reading instruction with children in grades K through 8 (teachers will therefore need to purchase these texts in multiple copies). Some books may be more suited for reading aloud. Board books and pop-up books, for example, are not appropriate. Currently only books written in English are accepted.

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Guidelines for submitting books to the Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Books website

Participating publishers will have access to an on-line interface to upload lists of titles to be leveled as well as the corresponding electronic files of the books for the levelers to read and level on-line in a collaborative environment. All pre-published titles and electronic files for books will remain confidential and will be used for the sole purpose of reviewing and leveling the title.

Once books are leveled, publishers will then have the ability to use The Fountas & Pinnell Text Level Gradient™ citation and/or insignia on a printed title or in marketing collateral.

To become a participating publisher, or for more information on the leveling program, please click here: Download a Publisher Partner Agreement.

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How do publishers submit titles for leveling?

Publishers and Developers: Click here to download a publisher partner agreement

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