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.
- Plus Plan
Phoneme Spotter Story – Long 'e' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the long 'e' sound.
- Plus Plan
Color by Sight Words - 4 Words - Ladybug
A fun coloring activity to use when working with sight words.
- Plus Plan
Fry Sight Words Flash Cards
A set of flash cards for the first 100 Fry Sight Words.
- Plus Plan
Readers' Theater Script - Josephine
A readers’ theater script that can be used for reading fluency and expressive reading.
- Plus Plan
Readers' Theater Script - Pet Rescue
A script which can be used during readers' theater or Drama sessions, aimed at students 8 years and over.
- Plus Plan
Readers' Theater Script - Muddy Footprint Mystery
A script which can be used during readers' theater or Drama sessions, aimed at students 10 years and over.
- Plus Plan
Readers' Theater Script - Science Experiment
A script which can be used during readers' theater or Drama sessions, aimed at students 10 years and over.
- Plus Plan
Readers' Theater Script - Dog Park Days
A script which can be used during readers' theater or Drama sessions, aimed at students 10 years and over.
- Plus Plan
Readers' Theater - Scripts Tracker
A document listing all of Teach Starter's scripts for Readers' Theater.
- Plus Plan
Dolch Sight Word List – Complete Set
Practice word recognition with our set of 8 Dolch Sight Word Lists.
- Plus Plan
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.
- Plus Plan
April Fool’s Day Silly Story Worksheets
Celebrate April Fools' Day in the classroom with these fun silly story worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Barack Obama Mini Book
Learn about the life and contributions of Barack Obama with a printable mini-book filled with facts and details for early readers.
- Plus Plan
Thurgood Marshall Mini Book
Discover the accomplishments of Thurgood Marshall with a printable mini-book.
- Plus Plan
Sojourner Truth - Printable Book for Kids
Discover the accomplishments and influence that Sojourner Truth had on America with a printable mini-book.
- Plus Plan
Facts About Katherine Johnson - Printable Mini Book
Discover the accomplishments and influence that Katherine Johnson had on America with a printable mini-book.
- Plus Plan
Who was Abraham Lincoln? Book
Learn about the life and contributions of Abraham Lincoln with a printable mini-book filled with facts and activities for early readers.
- Plus Plan
George Washington Mini-Book
Learn about the life and contributions of George Washington with a printable mini-book filled with facts and activities for early readers.
- Plus Plan
Read Along Pocket Chart Cards - Rosa Parks
Read and learn about Rosa Parks with printable pocket chart cards.
- Plus Plan
Features of Insects Mini-Book
Learn about creepy crawly insects with a printable decodable book for first and second-grade readers.
- Plus Plan
Google Interactive Sight Word Study-Kindergarten Dolch Words
Read, write, identify, and build all 52 Dolch kindergarten sight words in an interactive Google Slides presentation.
- Plus Plan
Phoneme Spotter Story – /oo/ Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the /oo/ sound.
- Plus Plan
Phoneme Spotter Story – /ar/ Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the /ar/ sound.
- Plus Plan
Wee Willie Winkie Nursery Rhyme - Poster and Cut-Out Pages
A poetry activity using the nursery rhyme "Wee Willie Winkie".
- Plus Plan
Jack Be Nimble Nursery Rhyme - Poster and Cut-Out Pages
A poetry activity using the nursery rhyme "Jack Be Nimble".
- Plus Plan
Row, Row, Row Your Boat Nursery Rhyme - Rhyme Page and Sorting Activity
Row, Row, Row Your Boat – Printable shared poetry, sentence, and word rebuilding activities.
- Free Plan
Find It! - Sight Word Worksheets
Make your sight word instruction fun with this word search puzzle.
- Plus Plan
Read Along Pocket Chart Cards – Dr. Mae Jemison
Use this set of 13 sight word and image display cards for your reading and history lessons.
- Plus Plan
Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - HAVE
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “have” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
- Plus Plan
Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - AM
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “am” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
- Plus Plan
Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - TOO
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “too” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
- Plus Plan
Decodable Text Worksheets – Set 2
A set of 10 decodable text worksheets for early readers.
- 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