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
Fluency Reading Passage Pack - Grade 1
Assess student fluency with a printable pack of reading fluency passages for 1st grade.
- Plus Plan
American Symbols Mini-Book
Engage your students and inspire them to read and learn about American symbols and memorials with a printable book for 2nd grade.
- 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
Native Americans of the Northeast Woodlands Mini Book
Discover life in a Northeast Woodland Native American tribe with a printable mini-book.
- Free Plan
In the Arctic - Free Decodable Book
Engage your students and inspire them to read and learn about life in the Arctic with a printable book for 2nd grade.
- Plus Plan
Dolch Sight Word List – Complete Set
Practice word recognition with our set of 8 Dolch Sight Word Lists.
- Plus Plan
Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - SAY
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “say” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
- Plus Plan
Dolch Sight Word Tracker - Google Sheets
Track mastery of Dolch Sight Words using a digital Google Sheets Sight Word tracking spreadsheet
- Plus Plan
3rd Grade Reading Fluency Passages
Assess student fluency with a printable pack of reading fluency passages for 3rd grade.
- 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
Read and Draw a Story Worksheets
Practice reading comprehension with kindergarten and first-grade students with a set of Read and Draw comprehension worksheets.
- Plus Plan
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.
- Plus Plan
Phoneme Spotter Story – /oy/ Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the /oy/ sound.
- Plus Plan
Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - VERY
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “very” from the Second Grade Dolch sight words list.
- Free Plan
Color by Sight Words - 5 Words - Bee
A fun coloring activity to use when working with sight words.
- Plus Plan
My Little Sight Word Book - Editable
An editable little book for learning sight words.
- Plus Plan
Decodable Text Worksheets – Set 1
A set of 10 decodable text worksheets for early readers.
- Plus Plan
Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - HAD
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “had” from the First Grade Dolch sight words list.
- Plus Plan
Roll it! Read it! Write it! Dolch 1st Grade Sight Words
Practice reading and writing Dolch’s first grade high-frequency words with this board game for multiple players.
- Plus Plan
Who Is Rosa Parks? – Shared Reading and Activity
Learn about and discuss activist Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott with this 15-slide read-along PowerPoint presentation.
- Plus Plan
Readers' Theater Script - Hansel and Gretel
A readers’ theater script that can be used for reading fluency and expressive reading.
- Plus Plan
2nd Grade Fluency Reading Passages
Download a printable pack of 2nd grade reading fluency passages with a printable ORF assessment pack.
- Plus Plan
Fluency Assessment Tool
Use our fluency assessment tool to gauge your students’ oral reading fluency, speed, accuracy, and more!
- Plus Plan
Roll and Read – Sight Word Game Pack
Practice reading sight words with this set of 5 Roll to Read Sight Word Game boards.
- Plus Plan
Sight Word Assessments and Data Tracking Sheets
Track Dolch sight word mastery with this set of printable assessments and data sheets.
- 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
Write About It! Christmas Sentence Builder Pack
Write around the Christmas tree with a group of Christmas sentence building worksheets for beginning writers.
- Plus Plan
Phoneme Spotter Story – /or/ Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the /or/ sound.
- Plus Plan
Sight Word Dominoes - Dolch 1st Grade
Improve identifying high-frequency words by sight with this set of 40 Dolch First Grade sight word dominoes.
- Plus Plan
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.
- Free Plan
Find It! - Sight Word Worksheets
Make your sight word instruction fun with this word search puzzle.
- Plus Plan
Who Is Martin Luther King, Jr? - Shared Reading and Activity
Use this 13-slide PowerPoint as a collaborative reading exercise about Martin Luther King, Jr.
- 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