What is Reading Fluency and How Can We Teach It?

In this post, I share what it means to read fluently and how we can help students build reading fluency. Then I share tips and activities to build fluency and improve reading comprehension.

Building our students’ ability to comprehend and make meaning of what they read seems to be the #1 goal of reading instruction.  It’s essential for learning and really for all of life!

There are many different skills and strategies you can teach to help your students build their reading comprehension, but today I want to talk specifically about just one…building fluency.  

A significant study on reading fluency conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress found a tight correlation between reading fluency and reading comprehension.

The better the fluency, the stronger the comprehension.

But sadly, the study also found that fluency is “a neglected reading skill in many American classrooms, affecting many students’ reading comprehension.” 

Reading this inspired me to share information and resources to help bring more effective fluency instruction into your classroom! 

What is Reading Fluency?

Reading fluency is the power to read quickly and accurately. A fluent reader can group and recognize words with ease. When they read aloud, they have a smooth natural expression. 

These are the five key parts of reading fluently (taken from Reading Strategies): 

1. Phrasing or parsing – putting words together into meaningful groups within a sentence.
2. Expression or intonation or prosody – reading to match the feeling of the piece, paying attention to ending punctuation and dialogue marks.
3. Emphasis – emphasizing words in the sentence to match the author’s meaning. Paying attention to text treatments (bold, italics, all caps).
4. Automaticity – reading known words automatically
5. Pace – reading at a pace that mirrors how we talk, not racing through words or reading at a labored rate.

Why is Reading Fluency Important? 

Reading fluency is the bridge between word recognition and reading comprehension.

Kids who can read fluently don’t have to do the work of decoding. Instead they can focus their attention on text meaning and make mental connections that help deepen their understanding.  Fluent readers recognize words and comprehend their overall meaning at the same time.

It is important to note that fluency and comprehension may not always be connected.  Be aware of the student who can read aloud beautifully but can’t seem to answer any questions about what they just read!   

Also, keep in mind that we shouldn’t expect readers at the lowest levels to read with fluency.  Their focus should be on one-to-one matching (reading one word aloud for each word in print) and pointing under the words.

How to Teach Reading Fluency 

As with all things, you’ll want to model, model, model, as well as provide a range of opportunities for whole group, small group and independent practice.  

If you are looking for explicit instruction for fluency, I highly recommend the book The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers by Jennifer Serravallo. 

She has a ton of great ideas for mini-lessons on fluency (along with other skills that help build comprehension!)  I’m sharing some of my favorites below! 

Model Reading Fluency!  

Reading aloud to your class is the perfect opportunity to model fluency.  Do it daily. Show them how punctuation, characters’ feelings, etc., help you know how to make your voice sound.  When you do, you are giving your students the opportunity to learn how a reader’s voice can help a text make sense.  

Storyline Online is a free website that has a lot of examples of adults reading aloud.

It is perfect for a listen to reading center and did I mention it is FREE?? No login required!

Offer Independent Activities to Build Reading Fluency

• “Partners Help to Smooth It Out” is a great lesson that I came across in the Reading Strategies book.

For this activity, you simply put one book in-between two kids during partner reading. 

Together they look at the words, listen to themselves and their partner The goal is for the two students to read in one voice, pausing at the same places and using the same expression.  

• “Make the Bumpy Smooth” is another powerful lesson from The Reading Strategies Book. 

It’s a lesson that teaches students that sometimes it’s hard to read smoothly the very first time you read a new story, encounter new words, or new information. 

When this happens, students are taught to go back after they know the words, reread them and try to smooth it out, or to make what was bumpy, smooth. 

USE FLUENCY PHONES

One last lesson from the book that your students will love is called “Fluency Phone for Feedback.”  It allows students to listen to themselves read.  They can either find a quiet spot in the room where they can read to themselves without disturbing others or use one of these “fluency phones” to hear themselves read (the curved tube allows for instant feedback). 

You can purchase fluency phones here or make one with PVC piping.

Students could also record themselves on a device (like an ipad) and play back to listen to and evaluate their fluency, asking themselves, “Am I reading smoothly and with expression?”

Resources to Build Reading Fluency

1. Poetry Reading Center

This interactive center lets students build familiar nursery rhymes while reinforcing fluency, phonemic awareness, and word recognition in a hands-on way. And thanks to a recent update, each nursery rhyme now includes a QR code, which means it can also be used as a listening center! 🎧

Why You’ll Love This Resource:

✅ It’s an engaging literacy center that exposes students to classic nursery rhymes that every child should know.
✅ Students can work alone or with a partner
✅ It includes 22(!) nursery rhymes you just print, laminate, and use for years!​
✅ It now includes QR codes, which help students build their fluency & allow you to use the resource as a listening center!

Add this engaging fluency center to your classroom today! Grab it here–> Nursery Rhymes Poetry Center

2. Write the Room

These differentiated Write the Room decodable sentence activities give kindergarten, first, and second grade students practice reading and writing words that contain targeted phonics skills. 

This literacy center includes 2 levels of sentences to make it easy for you to differentiate. The Level 1 sentences follow our 1st grade scope and sequence and the Level 2 sentences follow the 2nd grade scope and sequence.  Take a closer look at our science of reading-aligned phonics scope and sequence here.

At the bottom of each recording sheet is a checklist that students fill in as they read the sentences aloud to build fluency. This ensures students get to practice writing AND reading words with the target phonics skill.

Ready to give these Write the Room Decodable Sentences a try in your classroom? Download a FREE sample of the resource HERE!

The ultimate goal of reading is to make meaning.  We know that fluency is closely correlated to comprehension, so I hope the information, resources, and activities I have shared today will help bring more fluency instruction to your classroom!  It’s an essential skill that will benefit your students in your classroom and beyond!  

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