Fluency for Small Groups

Focus on reading fluency with this collection of free, printable fluency activities perfect for centers or small group work.

This is another free resource for teachers from The Curriculum Corner.

These reading fluency practice activities are a part of The Curriculum Corner’s Small Group Reading Instruction Toolkit.

Reading fluency can be such an important part of your small groups, we wanted to provide you with a collection of go-to activities to use as needed.  

Here we have created some go-to activities for quick and easy fluency practice during your small group instruction.  Print all of the activities and have them at the ready for your students who need them.  

What is Reading Fluency?

Reading fluency is the ability to read text accurately, at a good pace and with good expression.

The goal is not for students to be the quickest reader. Instead, you want students to be able to read like they are talking.

Why Should I Focus on Reading Fluency?

We believe that reading fluency is an important piece of strong reading instruction in the classroom.

Reading fluently is important because it can help students build comprehension. If a child is reading word by word in a choppy manner, it will be more difficult for students to build an understanding of what they are reading.

You will find your reading fluency practice activities at the bottom of this post. Look for: Fluency for Small Groups.

This fluency collection includes ready to go printables along with a small selection of editable activities.

The resources you will download in this collection are:

Fluency Bookmarks

After you teach your students what reading fluency is, give them this bookmark/reading tracker as a reminder fluency key points.  

You can also use them during your conferences if you see that students need more help.

Letter Sound Fluency Strips

These strips will help students who still need practice with their letter sounds or blends/digraphs.

Cut them apart and put them in a folder.

Or, punch holes in the corners and place them on a binder ring. Students work from left to right saying the sounds each letter or blend makes.

Fry Word Boxes

These word strips are meant for your students who are still working on their Fry mastery. 

You will find word strips that contain the first 300 Fry words.

Again, these can be hole punched and placed on rings.

One to One Correspondence

You may have early readers who still struggle with one-one correspondence.  

Although we don’t want students reading word for word when we practice fluency, we do want to support our earliest readers.  These pages have Fry word sentences with stars under each word.

• Students practice putting their finger on a star as they say each word.  
• As they progress in their fluency, you will want to encourage them to slide their fingers from star to star while reading the sentences
• Again, you can leave them on the pages, put them in folders or cut them apart and place them on a binder ring for quick practice.

  

Fluency Pyramids

This set of sentences is meant to be practiced with a straight edge.

Creative idea: use paint strips from your local hardware store instead of a ruler to add a little color to the activity.

Students begin at the top of the pyramid reading what they see.

They will “underline” each set of words with the edge.  

Their fluency and confidence build as they progress down the pyramid.

The goal is for students to be able to read the entire sentence fluently when they reach the bottom.

Expanding Sentences 

We want our students to have practice reading shorter sentences with fluency. The goal is for them to progress to longer ones.  

These pages are meant to be cut apart and stapled together with the shortest sentence on the top.  

Students read the first sentence strip then flip and read the next one which is a bit longer, and so forth.  

Their confidence will build as they are able to read longer and longer sentences.

Fluency Voices

This is a fun activity to get students practicing reading fluently.  

Choose your reading selection for your small groups. We always like to give our small groups an opportunity to practice first.

Each student will read their line using a voice card to tell them how to read.

Funny Fluency Flip Book

This fun flip book is meant for students to have fun with their fluency practice.  

Staple all the beginning, middle and ending squares onto the appropriate boxes on the flip book template.  

Students flip various pages up to create new and funny sentences that they can read aloud.

Fry Fluency Sentences – Roll & Read

This can be a Fry fluency game you add to your literacy centers.

The games come with Fry fluency sentences preprogrammed.

This download includes three different roll and read games. They focus on the first 300 Fry words.  

To Play: Students roll a die, read a sentence from the correct column and check the box.  Students can complete as an individual task or give students different color markers and take turns.

***If you are looking to create your own roll & read fluency game, you can edit the version found with the other editable resources.

Siri…The Math Genius

Don’t know about your kids, but ours LOVE to ask Siri questions!  

Help them work on speaking clearly and at an adequate rate as they ask Siri some math questions and record her answers.

Editable Reading Fluency Resources

Spin and Read a Phrase

This editable PDf is designed to be programmed with your own sentences.

You can change the sentences to fit the book your small group is working on.  

Use the latest free version of Adobe Reader to be able to edit.  Or, use the sentences we have preprogrammed.  

Students will use a paperclip to create a spinner.  They will read the sentence they land on to work on their fluency skills.  

Extension: To add a little extra fun to the spinner, partner this activity with our fluency voices cards from above.

Roll & Read Fluency Sentences

This is the same template used for our Fry Word Sentences Roll & Read.

This is an editable version. You will be able to program the game with your own fluency sentences.

Fluency for Small Groups

Download your free reading fluency printables here:

• Reading Fluency for Small Groups (colorful)
• Reading Fluency for Small Groups (black & white)
• Fry Word Sentences Roll & Read
• Editable Reading Fluency for Small Groups

One student favorite for fluency practice is reader’s theater. We have a few favorite books on Amazon that can provide you with ready to go scripts. (Contains affiliate links.)

If you are looking for more resources to helps students in their mastery of reading fluency, you might want to check out some of our other Fry resources:

Fry Fluency Sentences

Looking for additional small group reading resources? Start here:

Small Group Toolkit

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As with all of our resources, The Curriculum Corner creates these for free classroom use. Our products may not be sold. You may print and copy for your personal classroom use. These are also great for home school families!

You may not modify and resell in any form. Please let us know if you have any questions.