Fluency is Fun


Fluency Literary Design


Lea Mclean



Rationale: The goal of this lesson is for students to learn how to speed up the pace of their reading. Students read slow and monotonously to avoid making mistakes. In order for students to comprehend the text, they need to learn to vary the rates of their reading. Fluent readers read faster, smoother, and more expressively. By reading and rereading the text, the students will learn to read faster. This lesson will help to assess and improve this skill.




sentence strips for phrases (I have got a piece of candy, Reading is fun, Let’s go play out side, Silent reading is great)

Multiple copies of What will the Seal Eat (Phonics Readers-Long Vowels. Educational Insights. 1990)

partner sheets with checklist that checks fluency and expression made by teacher checklist for assessment



1) Introduce the lesson by explaining to the students that all good readers read accurately, while decoding and comprehending. Explain to the students that it is important to be fluent in reading while being able to decode unknown words. “Today we are going to work on decoding while reading at a good pace. We want to build our reading skills.  It can be hard to read at a fast pace when you are unfamiliar with some of the words in the book. Today we are going to learn how to read fluently while decoding”.
2) Start by explaining the meaning of a decoding strategy to the students. Help the students by giving them an example of how to decode a word that is unfamiliar. “Does anyone know what it is called when we don’t know a word and we try to figure it out? Good that method is called decoding. First we take the vowel sound and then we move to the first letter. Then we blend the first and second sound into the remaining sounds. For example, if we had the word bed, we would start with the e and the put b-e together and then put it all together to say b-e-d. Let’s try a couple of made up words and see if we can decode them”. Example words ball, sick, rub.
3) Explain to the students that adding all the letters together in bed is called blending and that this step leads to fluency. “It is hard to read and understand a word just by decoding. After you decode and figure out the letters and sounds to read the word you have to blend the sounds together. If you did not blend the words together the word would be segmented and hard to understand. For example, is it easier to understand the word

s-ch -oo-l or school. Your right it is easier to understand the word school that is already blended together. After you blend a word it makes it easier to read and understand. This is what makes us become fluent readers. Let’s practice putting phrases of words together, “I-went-to- the-park-and-played-outside. When we are able to say the sentence all together like that, reading becomes enjoyable because we are not chopping up the phrases and it’s easier to comprehend.
4) Explain to the class that we are going to practice blending words together by singing a song. “It is important that everyone listens to me sing the first time and then join in the second time. We are going to sing “Over the Mountain and through the woods”. Now we will say the phrase out loud,
The phrase out loud
The phrase out loud
Now we will say the phrase out loud,
So put the words together
Say: I-have-got –piece-of-candy.. (Place sentence strip on board while saying it. Then have the children repeat smoothly. Other phrases:
Reading is fun, Let’s go play outside, silent reading is great.)
5) Explain to the class that we are now going to practice reading fluently while decoding. Put each child with a partner to read the new book. Have the students read What will the seal eat. “Everyone needs to take turns with your partner while reading. I want everyone to work on reading accurately and smoothly. Remember to used decoding strategies when you come to a word that is unfamiliar. I want everyone to read the book two times through. Each partner needs to read it two times before they pass the book to the next person. I want everyone to listen to their partner as they read. Listen for them reading fluently with expression. Write a few sentences on your partner’s book and their technique in reading. Write down at least one thing that your partner did while reading that was positive. Each person needs to remember that while writing your report it is important to only write nice things”.
6) For assessment, walk around as the children are reading and show them a sentence strip from the book and see if they are able to read it fluently and record the time they read it in also.



* Nungesser, Ashley. Fluency is Fantastic. Spring, 2002


Click here to return to explorations