Reading Fluency Activities: What Are They and How Are They Implemented?

Reading fluency activities must be done on a daily basis. There are many reading fluency strategies for teaching fluency, and here are some of the best.

Fluency is the "bridge" between decoding and comprehension. Improving reading fluency is the strongest predictor of increasing reading comprehension.

Assessing Reading Fluency

Reading fluency programs may be used to assess, intervene and guide reading fluency lessons.

If a student scores 10 or more words below the 50th percentile level in two or more cold-readings from grade level text, then that student needs reading fluency activities.


The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), found that nearly half of American fourth graders had not achieved a minimal level of fluency in their reading, and this was associated with significant difficulties in comprehension while reading silently (Pinnell et al., 1995).

Using reading fluency tests like DIBELS, teachers can diagnostically interpret data to guide development of reading fluency activities for their students, but keep in mind this does not replace teacher observation and knowledge about the student.

For example, if my second grade student reads 13 Correct Words Per Minute (CWPM or WCPM) in the fall on the DIBELS benchmark assessmet, then that student is ranking in the 10th percentile.

That is a red flag to intervene - and fluency interventions should fit evidence-based children reading programs.

Reading Fluency Activities

If your students struggle to achieve automaticity in their decoding, here are some strategies you should use in to intervene with teaching fluency.

These would all be considered Tier 1 or possibly Tier 2 Response to Intervention, depending on the frequency each intervention is employed.

Paired reading is when a struggling student reads aloud in unison with a tutor or teacher ("benchmark" refers to a student who has met or exceeded fluency goals). When the student is ready, he or she is to signal that s/he feels ready to read alone. The key to this is the corrective feedback that must occur.

Reading fluency lesson plans have corrective feedback as a key component. The tutor will wait for the student to signal that s/he needs help with a word. If the student does not know the word, the tutor will provide it. If the student misreads a word, the tutor is to point to it and pronounce it. If the student makes an error during reading and does not recognize it, the tutor points to the word and pronounces it. In all of these cases, the student is to repeat the word correctly, then carry on reading.


Repeated Reading of Reading Fluency Passages

Repeated reading is one of the reading fluency activities that I use most often in my classroom. This can be done whole class, small group or individually.

The student is given a passage to read aloud - be sure that it is a passage that the student can read with a 95% success rate consisting of approximately 150-200 words in length. You want to build on small accomplishments. This passage will be read at least 4-5 times over a few days.

The student reads the passage aloud, and if s/he misreads or hesitates at a word, the tutor reads it aloud. If the student does not know what a word means, the tutor will define it.

Often repeated readings are done at one minute intervals. I graph the student's progress to show the improvement. This visual affirmation is important so the child can see the progress that is being made.


Use Elementary Poetry or Author Studies to Increase Reading Fluency and Comprehension.

You may also want to try a complete reading fluency and comprehension program called Reading Karate!

Be prepared though -
your students will become voracious readers just to get to their black belts!

Measuring Effectiveness of Reading Fluency Activities

DIBELS is also used to get base line data for assessing reading fluency.

Click here for PDF files:
Oral Reading Fluency Benchmarks for grades 1-12
DIBELS Progress Monitoring Grade 2 courtesy University of Oregon
DIBELS Benchmark Assessment Grade 2 courtesy University of Oregon

You can also log in to the University of Oregon and view Progress Monitoring and Benchmark Assessments for grades K-6.

If after progress monitoring a student for 6 consecutive weeks and little progress is being made, you will then need to consider moving to a Tier 3 intervention.

This is also the time to work very closely with your Intervention Specialists and the school psychologist, if you have not done so already.

Click here for Reading Fluency and Comprehension Levels, along with red flags for interventions.

There are some online teaching programs you can use to help with teaching reading fluency, or consider an online reading specialist. As well, there are many quality programs you can purchase to use for reading fluency activities.

One excellent reading fluency program that I will recommend is Read Naturally. This is a teaching fluency program that really works (we use it extensively in my district, and not just for the children who are struggling).

Do keep in mind though, that no reading fluency program will ever replace a knowledgeable and observant teacher. Building reading fluency does not come from a program - it comes from real practice, real reading interventions and an expert teacher.

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