The Reissner-Mindlin plate model for calculation of functionally graded materials has been proposed in literature by using shear correction coefficient of homogeneous model. However, this use is a priori not appropriate for the gradient material. Identification of the transverse shear factors is thus investigated in this paper. The transverse shear stresses are derived by using energy considerations from the expression of membrane stresses. Using the obtained transverse shear factor, a numerical analysis is performed on a simply supported FG square plate whose elastic properties are isotropic at each point and vary through the thickness according to a power law distribution. The numerical results of a static analysis are compared with available solutions from previous studies.