In this post, I share what reading fluency is and why it matters. Then I offer research-backed strategies for building fluency and leave you with FREE fluency activities you can use in your classroom today!
✅ You’ve taught the phonics skill.
✅ You’ve practiced decoding.
✅ You’ve even seen improvement in accuracy.
But when your students read aloud, something is still missing.
The pace is slow and halting.
They run out of breath halfway through a sentence.
And when you ask about what they just read… they can’t tell you.
That “something missing” is often fluency—the bridge between knowing how to read words and understanding them. Without fluency, students struggle to make meaning, stay engaged, or feel confident as readers.
The good news? Fluency can be taught—and practiced! In this post, I share what fluency is and why it matters. Then I offer 3 research-backed strategies for building fluency and leave you with fluency-building activities you can use in your classroom today!
What Is Reading Fluency?
In their book Reading Fluency, Jan Hasbrouck and Deb Glaser define fluency as, “Reasonably accurate reading, at an appropriate rate, with suitable expression, that leads to accurate and deep comprehension and motivation to read.”
Fluent readers recognize words automatically, group words for meaning, and read aloud with expression. Their reading sounds natural—like spoken language.
Students who haven’t yet developed fluency often read slowly, word by word. Their reading may sound robotic or choppy, with little attention to punctuation or phrasing. This makes it harder to make sense of what they’re reading.
Does Fluency Matter?
YES! Fluency is the bridge between decoding and comprehension. When students no longer have to labor over each word, they can focus on what the text actually means. Fluent readers are able to recognize words and understand them at the same time.
But be aware- some students may read with great expression and still struggle to answer questions about the text. That’s why fluency and comprehension should always be developed together.
It’s also important to remember: we don’t expect fluency from our earliest readers. For beginning readers, the focus should be on one-to-one matching—pointing under each word, tracking with their finger, and saying one word for every word in print.
When to Begin Fluency Instruction
So when should you start explicitly teaching fluency? Research doesn’t point to an exact age, but most teachers begin building fluency around the middle of first grade, once students have a solid grasp of basic decoding.
Fluency researchers Stahl and Kuhn (2002) suggest that once students show confidence with decoding and understand what reading is all about, it’s time to start encouraging them to “make it sound like talking.”
3 Strategies to Improve Fluency
1. Repeated Reading
Repeated Reading is a powerful strategy where students read the same text multiple times to build accuracy, automaticity, and expression.
- Word recognition
- Reading rate (speed + accuracy)
- Prosody (expression and phrasing)
- Comprehension
This approach is especially helpful for students who can identify phonics patterns in isolation but struggle to apply them in connected text. Repeated reading gives them the chance to transfer phonics knowledge to real reading—and as we know, application is how skills stick.
➡️ Want to learn more? In this blog post, I share more about the benefits of repeated readings and offer a simple 5-step routine you can use to make repeated reading effective and engaging.
2. Teach High-Frequency Words (Heart Words)
High-frequency words are the most common words students will encounter in text.
If students are constantly stopping and stumbling over these words, their reading becomes bumpy and disjointed, which disrupts comprehension and fluency.
That’s why it’s so important to teach these words explicitly—especially the ones that can’t be fully sounded out. We call these heart words: words with one or more parts students need to learn “by heart.”
Through phoneme-grapheme mapping and focused instruction on the “tricky parts,” students can store these words for automatic recall. When they no longer have to decode high-frequency words, their reading becomes more fluid—and their brain is freed up to focus on meaning.
➡️ Learn more about how to integrate heart words into your phonics routine in this blog post.
3. Model Fluent Reading
Students need to hear what fluent reading sounds like. That’s why it’s essential that teachers and parents read aloud every day.
As you read, point out how you use punctuation, expression, and natural phrasing to bring the text to life. Talk about how your voice helps you (and the listener!) understand what’s happening in the story. These quick “think-aloud” moments help students internalize what it means to read with fluency and purpose.
Fluency Activities for Students
1. Poetry Building Literacy 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 here—> Write the Room FREEBIE
3. Decodable Readers
My Decodable Passages with Comprehension Questions are the perfect resource to help students build their fluency.
One feature that makes this resource unique is that every book or passage includes a QR Code which allows students to listen to the story read aloud by a fluent reader. This is an awesome feature for students who benefit from hearing text read aloud by a fluent reader. Students can access the QR code at school or at home.
Each Decodable Passage Also Includes:
✔ Explicit lesson plans with suggested pacing, as well as activities for before, during, and after reading.
✔ Blending lines to practice phonics skills before reading.
✔ Printable passages with comprehension questions so students can reread and build fluency and comprehension, and a QR code so students can hear the passage read aloud.
FREE Decodable Texts
To help you begin repeated readings in your classroom, I’m offering 🎉 5 FREE Decodable Passages! 🎉
This free sample includes 5 FREE Decodable Passages with comprehension questions. You’ll also get explicit lesson plans and student printables that include the QR code so they can listen to the passage read aloud!
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!
