Reading Fluency Teaching Resources
Explore reading fluency teaching resources created by teachers for teachers! This collection of printable worksheets, digital reading center activities, Google Slides templates and more has been designed to help build students' foundational language skills — from understanding what to do with silent letters to recognizing sight words.
Packed with curriculum-aligned and differentiated resources, this collection of resources has been carefully curated by the expert ELA teachers at Teach Starter to ensure each one is classroom-ready to save you ample time on lesson planning.
New to this part of the ELA curriculum, or just looking for fresh ideas to engage your students? Read on for a guide on what reading fluency is, how to teach it and how to improve it!
What Is Reading Fluency?
We'll start at the very beginning — defining the topic at hand.
Reading fluency refers to a reader's ability to read words accurately, quickly, and with appropriate expression. It involves not just being able to recognize individual words but also being able to read entire sentences and paragraphs with ease and comprehension.
Developing fluency skills early on in elementary school is crucial as they will directly affect a child's reading comprehension and overall academic performance. If a student struggles with reading fluency, they may have difficulty understanding the meaning of what they are reading, which can make learning and retaining new information more challenging.
How to Teach Reading Fluency — Tips From Our Teacher Team
Teaching students to read fluently isn't something that happens overnight, of course. It involves different strategies that build on one another in the course of early literacy instruction.
Here are a few of the methods that are used in combination with one another to help kids grow their fluency skills:
Phonics Instruction
During the primary grades, students are beginning their journey with reading fluency by learning the basic sounds of letters and how to blend them together to form words. Phonics worksheets, games and other activities all come together here to help students practice their phonics skills.
Guided Reading
Working with small groups of students who are at a similar reading level is a common strategy starting around first grade, and guided reading may continue into third or fourth grade — depending on your teaching style and your students' needs. During guided reading, teachers choose books that are appropriate for each group and provide support and feedback as students read aloud.
Repeated Reading
Teaching second or third grade? You may may ask students to read the same passage multiple times to build fluency. This can involve choral reading (where the whole class reads together) or individual reading.
Reader's Theater
This popular strategy involves students acting out a story or play they have read. This helps them to build fluency and develop a better understanding of the text.
Partner Reading
You may want to pair students together to read a passage out loud to each other. This allows kids to practice reading fluently while also getting feedback and support from a peer.
Independent Reading
Encouraging students to read on their own at their own pace is one of the best ways to get kids hooked on reading and of course to build fluency. This can involve letting students choose their own books or assigning specific books to read. Encouraging students to read regularly, providing them with a variety of reading materials at their appropriate reading level and giving them feedback and positive reinforcement can all contribute to developing strong reading fluency skills.
No matter the grade you're teaching or the strategies you're using, teaching reading fluency will require you to observe how well your students can read aloud and how smoothly they can read silently.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - What
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “what” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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In My Classroom Concept Book
A printable concept book for children to discuss things around their classroom.
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Decodable Text Worksheets – Set 2
A set of 10 decodable text worksheets for early readers.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - WOULD
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “would” from the Second Grade Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - SLEEP
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “sleep” from the Second Grade Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - AWAY
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “away” from the Pre-Primer Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - UP
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “up” from the Pre-Primer Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - COME
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “come” from the Pre-Primer Dolch sight words list.
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Roll it! Read it! Write it! Dolch Pre-Primer Sight Words
Practice reading and writing Dolch’s pre-primer high-frequency words with this board game for multiple players.
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Readers' Theater Script - Triple Trouble
A script which can be used during readers' theater or Drama sessions, aimed at students 8 years and over.
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Readers' Theater Script - Solar Force Five
A script which can be used during readers' theater or Drama sessions, aimed at students 8 years and over.
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Readers' Theater Script - Hansel, Gretel and Nancy
A script which can be used during readers' theater or Drama sessions, aimed at students 10 years and over.
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Reading Fluency and Accuracy - Student Tracker
Monitor your students' fluency and accuracy while reading with this individual student tracker.
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Fluency Reading Passage Pack - Grade 1
Assess student fluency with a printable pack of reading fluency passages for 1st grade.
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Days of the Week Mini Book
Create a Days of the Week Booklet to help your students identify, sequence and spell the days of the week.
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Sight Word Lists – Teacher Resource Binder
Use this collection of checklists, student pages and quick-check assessments when reviewing Dolch sight words spanning from pre-primer to 3rd grade.
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Sight Word Assessments and Data Tracking Sheets
Track Dolch sight word mastery with this set of printable assessments and data sheets.
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Parts of a Plant Mini Books K-2
Read and learn about the parts of a plant with a set of differentiated printable readers.
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April Fool’s Day Silly Story Worksheets
Celebrate April Fools' Day in the classroom with these fun silly story worksheets.
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Native Americans of the Northeast Woodlands Mini Book
Discover life in a Northeast Woodland Native American tribe with a printable mini-book.
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Jellyfishing for Sight Words - Kindergarten Sight Word Game
Go jellyfishing for Kindergarten Dolch words with an interactive Google Slides game!
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Write About It! Christmas Sentence Builder Pack
Write around the Christmas tree with a group of Christmas sentence building worksheets for beginning writers.
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Desert Mini-Book - Printable Reader
Engage your students and inspire them to read and learn about plants and animals in the desert with a printable book for 2nd grade.
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Daily Dolch Drills — Pre-Primer Weekly Homework
Practice weekly sight words to strengthen letter-sound recognition, spelling, and reading fluency with six weeks of sight word homework worksheets.
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Google Interactive Sight Words - 1st Grade Dolch
Read, write, identify, and build all 41 Dolch first-grade sight words in an interactive Google Slides presentation.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – /oy/ Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the /oy/ sound.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – /er/ Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the /er/ sound.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – /or/ Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the /or/ sound.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – /ow/ Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the /ow/ sound.
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Who Is Ruby Bridges? – Shared Reading and Activity
Read along to learn about Ruby Bridges and her role in desegregation with this 14-slide PowerPoint presentation.
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Jack Be Nimble Nursery Rhyme - Poster and Cut-Out Pages
A poetry activity using the nursery rhyme "Jack Be Nimble".
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Color by Sight Words - 7 Words - Monkey
A fun coloring activity to use when working with sight words.
- Reading Fluency Worksheets
- Reading Fluency Games
- Reading Fluency Templates
- Reading Fluency for Pre-K
- Reading Fluency for Kindergarten
- Reading Fluency for 1st Grade
- Reading Fluency for 2nd Grade
- Reading Fluency for 3rd Grade
- Reading Fluency for 4th Grade
- Reading Fluency for 5th Grade
- Reading Fluency for 6th Grade