Reading fluency is the ability to read a text quickly, accurately, and with comprehension. While it may sounds easy enough, developing fluency skills is not always easy. Students often struggle with it and really good teachers know that it takes more than just a quick lesson to foster. This clever idea from Deborah, a 2nd Grade Teacher, from Mobile, Alabama helps students develop the skills they need in order to become fluent readers.
Foster Fluency in Reading
To teach fluency, choose a sentence your students can read fairly easily and write it on three separate sentence strips. Leave one strip whole. Cut the next strip into phrases. Cut the third strip apart, word for word.
Display the first strip and read it aloud in a way that demonstrates fluent reading.
Then display the word for word sentence and read that version. Ask students if that sounded fluent.
Next display the same sentence cut into phrases and read that aloud. Ask students if that sounded fluent.
By listening and comparing the various oral reading demonstrations, students will begin to recognize fluent reading and incorporate it into their own efforts.
This is a great activity to include in your morning meeting time. Repetition and modeling will help ensure that your students understand the concept. Ask them to read their sentences in these three ways, as well. Once they hear the difference in their own reading, they’ll be able to quickly identify what they can work on to be more fluent.
How do you encourage fluency in your students? Share your tips and tricks below!