I love the practical tips in this series for helping struggling readers - great strategies for working on comprehension and more! Helpful for kids in first grade, second, third, fourth, and higher. #strugglingreaders #teachingreading #comprehension #firstgrade #secondgrade #thirdgrade #fourthgrade

As we all know, fluency is a key component to reading success! Students need a LOT of opportunities to practice sight word recognition and newly learned

These Fluency Passages are perfect for beginning readers and struggling readers to practice reading sight words and short vowels, while working on increasing their fluency. -This packet is a sample of my other fluency packs V.1 which includes 25 Sentence Tree cards in both black and white and col...

Wondering how to improve reading fluency with young readers? Get eight practical tips!

Text phrasing can be a challenging reading fluency skill to teach. Readers who struggle with text phrasing, likely stuggle with reading comprehenion.

Hi, Teaching Friends! Here’s a fast and fun way to give your little readers a boost in fluent phrasing while reading about one of their favorite topics – SNOW! Just print these 19 phrasecards, cut apart, and secure together with a keyring or other loop. Put them in a center with the two included follow ... Read More about Boost Fluency in Phrasing with Winter Phrase Cards

This product contains posters related to reading fluently. They address rate, punctuation, accuracy, expression, phrasing, intonation, or stress. Read my September 17th blog post to read how I would introduce them in the classroom. Here is the link that will take you directly to the post: www.crafting-connections.blogspot.com Also, I created a 34-minute video where I explain why, when, and how I like to use readers' theaters in an upper elementary classroom. Click on the following link to check it out: Performing Readers' Theater in the Classroom: Video. My primary intention is to provide posters for teachers who are using my Partner Play scripts and Readers' Theater scripts. Feel free to check them out! GRADES 4-5: Partner Play FREEBIE script (grades 4-5) We Love Sports Lessons Learned (with bonus theme chart) A Town Scavenger Hunt Greek Mythology Modern Day Mythology Character Education Historical Fiction Fall & Halloween Animal Adaptations (a set of 8 scripts) Economics Biomes (six scripts) Go Green Figurative Language (7 scripts and a bonus worksheet!) Context Clues (with bonus worksheet) Character Traits (with bonus worksheet!) Making Inferences (with bonus worksheet!) Christmas Traditions Around the World (eight scripts)! Martin Luther King, Jr Valentine’s Day American Presidents (includes a fact & opinion worksheet!) End of Year Field Day Cause and Effect (with bonus worksheet) Fables (with bonus worksheet) Body Systems (six scripts with bonus worksheet) ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ I also have the following PARTNER PLAY BUNDLES: Partner Plays BUNDLE of 90 scripts... SET 1 (for grades 4-5) Partner Plays BUNDLE of 90 scripts… SET 2 (for grades 4-5) Partner Plays BUNDLE of 90 scripts... SET 3 (for grades 4-5) Partner Plays BUNDLE of 90 scripts… SET 1 (for grades 2-3) Partner Plays BUNDLE of 90 scripts… SET 2 (for grades 2-3) ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ GRADES 2-3 Partner Play FREEBIE script (grades 2-3) Freaky Friday Partner Plays Back-to-School Partner Plays The Five Senses Partner Plays Picture Day Partner Plays Amusement Park Partner Plays Fall Fun: Partner Plays for grades 2-3 Halloween Partner Plays for grades 2-3 Thanksgiving Partner Plays (grades 2-3) Christmas Traditions Around the World (grades 2-3) Valentine’s Day Partner Plays for grades 2-3 Making Inferences: Partner Plays for grades 2-3 with a bonus recording sheet! Multiple Meaning Words: Partner Plays for grades 2-3 with a bonus recording sheet! Context Clues: Partner Plays for grades 2-3 with a bonus recording sheet! Character Traits: Partner Plays for grades 2-3 with a bonus recording sheet! Idioms: Partner Plays for grades 2-3 with a bonus recording sheet! Amazing Animals: Partner Plays for grades 2-3 States of Matter Partner Plays: Solids, Liquids, & Gases (for grades 2-3) Let's Get Active: Seven Partner Plays for grades 2-3 Landforms: Five Partner Plays for grades 2-3 By Deb Hanson Clip art by Educlips

Once upon a time in the primary grades, comprehension skills were "taught" only after foundational reading skills like decoding and sight words had been mastered. Now research has shown us that comprehension instruction needs to begin even before a child reads - with listening comprehension, as children listen to stories and even in conversations! What seems so obvious now would have been a wild and crazy thought. Once upon a time. Now we also know that the reading skill/strategy of fluency plays a critical role in comprehension. Now we nip that word-by-word reading in the bud - hooray!! Fluent reading, in terms of appropriate rate, phrasing, and expression, have a direct effect on comprehension. Here's a set of 19 free autumn sight word phrase cards that you can put in a literacy center for independent or partner practice. The theme is fall, so your students will also be increasing their familiarity with basic fall seasonal words like apple, pumpkin, rake, and leaves. Click here to download your copy! Happy Teaching! 

Are you looking for a fun, multi-sensory way to work on sight words? These FREE sight word action cards will do the trick! Not only do these action cards get kids using their bodies to spell words, they help with letter formation (a part of the handwriting process), too! These are a perfect fit for struggling ... Read More about FREE Sight Word Action Cards

What exactly does it mean to read fluently?

Hello, Teaching Friends! Have you heard one of your little ones singing Christmas songs under her breath ... or more likely a whole table full of your kiddos belting songs out at full volume, accompanied by lots of laughing? Our kids are just so.... well, jolly at this time of year. So, why not use that enthusiasm for some extra literacy learning? This little collection of holiday songs can be the basis of lots of December literacy experiences in your classroom. There are three songs here, chosen because they're most likely familiar to your students, they're somewhat secular (to keep them usable in more of your classrooms), and they're all in the public domain. You'll probably want to expand your collection by adding the songs your students love! I'll bet your music teacher will have some suggestions, too. The words to a lot of seasonal songs are already familiar to many of our little ones. That knowledge will give your struggling learners the support they need to make the song reading activities successful for them. They'll also be helped by the wider than usual spacing between words and the extra spacing between lines. How can you use the song sheets in your classroom? * Show the lyrics on your interactive board or copy them on posterboard. Demonstrate directional movement, return sweep, and one-to-one match. Discuss the vocabulary. Frame phrases for fluency practice. Note and discuss punctuation, especially the commas. Practice intonation. * Make individual copies and assemble little song books for each child. Spend a few minutes each day singing the songs together. Teach strategies, like keeping your place on multiple lines of text by moving your finger down the left margin as you read each new line. Sneaky Teacher Tip: As your students practice this strategy, you'll be able to quickly observe who's really reading and who's just singin' along with the gang! * Write the words to a song on sentence strips. Then cut apart and have students reassemble them as a pocket chart literacy center activity. Be sure to keep a complete copy of the song nearby for those who need the extra support. You might put a cute holiday pencil or an small ornament glued to a dowel as a pointer in this center, to encourage one-to-one matching. * Use copies of the song sheets for word work. Think of the possibilities! Highlight (they do love those highlighters, don't they?? ) word wall words, capital letters, rhyming words, punctuation, multi-syllable words, vowels, digraphs,... * Performances! Use holiday songs as Readers Theater. Have groups of students read alternate lines or verses. Be wandering carolers on the day before break, reading some carols and singing others. * Do you use Song and Poem Notebooks? Copy the carols for rereading all through the school year. Click here to download your set! How will you integrate Christmas songs into your literacy program? Happy Teaching!

This activity allows students to practice working on fluency and sight word recognition. Includes 60 word phrase cards and special game cards. Clip Art by DigiWebStudio.

There are a lot of wonderful products available for building fluency, however this product has what I believe to be 2 unique features you might want to consider when choosing instructional materials: -The activities in this product provide practice with sight vocabulary phrases in isolation AND in the context of connected text, giving students practice using a “phrasing” or “chunking” strategy when reading to promote speed and proper phrasing immediately after practicing phrases in isolation. - Correct capitalization (hopefully) is used throughout-phrases begin with a lower case letter and sentences begin with a capital letter. I may be an overly zealous stickler for this, but I spend a lot of time telling my first graders when and when not to use capital letters, and believe it should be modeled in the print they read! MANY of the materials designed to help students read phrases feature a capital letter at the beginning of the phrases…take a look…food for thought! This fun and engaging product includes: -9 sets of phrases (Set A-Set I) Each of these sets includes 9 different phrases, all of which are taken from “Fry’s Phrases-the 1st 100 words”. For each phrase group there are 10 vertical strips, each of which lists the phrases in a different order so the students are challenged to recognize the print features instead of memorizing the order! -A “fluency flyer” frame which the students use by inserting a vertical phrase list and pulling it through to read each phrase through a ‘window”, the goal being to keep the phrases moving and read them quickly! -2 versions each of a boy & a girl “fluency flyer”-super heroes who can “read phrases faster than a bolt of lightning!” The fluency flyers need to be cut out, laminated, and attached to a craft stick-not included- (I colored mine with a metallic permanent marker-see picture).These are to be used as marker/pointer/”sweeper” as the students follow various paths labeled with fluency phrases.The ones featured in the picture are cut out super heroes, but I included optional super heroes mounted on a small “glittery” background if you find it easier to cut and maneuver squares. -6 separate “settings” or ‘scenes” on which 10 phrases are printed on a path or walkway. Students work with a partner taking turns having their “fluency flyer” ’”fly” under each phrase, reading it aloud, as they move along paths, the goal of which is to keep the ”fluency flyer” flying! Please check the preview for additional explanation and/ or feel free to contact me if you have any questions about how to use these materials. I believe there are a lot of wonderful variations you might use as you adapt to fit the needs of your students. I would absolutely love to hear any innovative ideas you had as your students became ‘fluency flyers”-I continually learn from my colleagues both in and out of the classroom. Thank you for your interest in this product. Please leave feedback, as I really do appreciate hearing from you as I continue to design instructional materials. Also, please check back often at my store, as I am constantly adding new products you might find helpful: www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Amy-Bratsos A big thank you to : Mycutegraphics.com-creators of what became my ‘fluency flyers”!! Fluency Flyers-Activities for Building Fluency with Fry's Fluency Phrase by Amy Bratsos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Does your reader sometimes sound like he’s just saying a string of words? Is it sometimes choppy? This can happen to all kinds of young readers, especially struggling readers. Instead of focusing on reading fluency and phrasing, struggling readers are often just trying to make sure they can say all the words correctly. Last week, The Measured ... Read More about Reading Fluency and Phrasing {Using Scooping Phrases}

Silly Sight Word Sentences for Fluency Practice This is a two page activity appropriate for kindergarten and first grade. Students will cut out the silly sentence parts and glue them into the grid. Then with a partner, they will take turns reading their silly sentences to practice phrasing, sco...

Fluency Station The students enjoyed using the Fluency Station. There are four activities to choose from: Expression Passages- The students...

A blog about teaching ideas and free resources, focusing on kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, and fourth grade.

Hi, Teaching Friends! Here’s a set of story cards for winter. The three snow stories are designed to give your children more practice on reading continous texts at early levels, and will help build fluent phrasing and expression, as well as automaticity with sight words. The biggest bonus? Your young readers will experience success! Happy ... Read More about Winter Story Cards

Teaching student to be fluent readers can be tough. Here are 5 fluency activities to engage your students in fluency practices in fun ways!

Comprehension Connection is a literacy website dedicated to providing teaching tips and resources for instruction for K-5 teachers focusing on comprehension.

Hi, Teaching Friends on Vacation! (Woohoo!) I hope you've begun to relax and enjoy your vacation! Well, I hope at least you've had the time to get your shopping done! (and wrapping, and baking, and decorating, oh my!) It's all wonderful fun and worth every bit of the work, but, boy, it's all a mighty big project, isn't it? :) Here's a little freebie to add to your post-vacation stash of literacy center ideas. It's a set of 19 sight word phrases for building fluent phrasing and expression and for automaticity with sight words. The set also includes a student recording sheet and a "Beat the Clock" activity which my students loved! Click on the picture to get it free at my TPT store! {{Updated 12/15!!}} The sight word phrase cards are part of "Wonderful Winter Literacy", a set of more than 15 literacy center activities at my TPT store. Please click on the cover picture to see it! Here's a peek at some of the other resources in this set. Well, my friends, that's definitely it until after Christmas! Check back next week for another post... and quite possibly another freebie! My best wishes to all of you and your families for a Christmas blessed with the knowledge of the true meaning of the day. "For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."   Sincerely,  

Spring Word Trees for reading fluency practice. Sight Words, phrasing, and Spring vocabulary help students practice reading fluently. Single pages or 2 on a page, booklet style. Images in both color and B/W. Spring-themed including gardening, insects, eggs, Easter, Leprechauns, and Mother's day. Questions? Email me: [email protected]

Themed poems for holidays, seasons, months, science, social studies......This BUNDLE includes 41 monthly themed poems and each includes week full of activities. Yes! A year of seasonal poems for kids all planned out for you- Over 400 pages. Reading comprehension fluency poems are a great addition to your shared reading passages for K-2. Reading fluency is such a fundamental skill to teach in K-2 classrooms. Fluency poems are a great way to teach fluency (expression, phrasing, comprehension, retelling, sight words, word work, writing, grammar, and so much more. These poems are great for kindergarten reading, 1st grade reading, and 2nd grade reading. You can teach science and socials studies through shared reading activities. This bundle includes fiction and nonfiction themes like community helpers, spiders, owls, Turkeys, Trees, Pandas, penguins, snowmen, Gingerbread Men, valentine's day, Groundhog's Day, and Black History Month. Print and go every month and have engaging poems and activities for class work, center work, morning work, and homework. Some are also Google Slides. September Poems and Activities: School Pledge Community Helpers 5 Senses Five Little Owls October Poems and Activities: Owls (Nonfiction) Shared Reading and Interactive Read Aloud Spiders 5 Spooky Bats Pumpkins Amazing Bats and Zipping, Zooming Bats Interactive Read Aloud Plan November Poems And Activities: Five Little Scarecrows Trees (nonfiction) 10 Shared Reading Poems for Science and Social Studies Five Little Turkeys December Poems and Activities: Five Yummy Gingerbread Five Little Snowmen Snowmen Five Little Gingerbread January Poems and Activities: Pandas (nonfiction) Penguins (nonfiction) Martin Luther King Jr (nonfiction) February Poems and Activities: I Gave My Dog a Valentine Five Little Valentines Rosa Parks (nonfiction) Groundhog Day March Poems and Activities: Animal Homes (nonfiction) Five Little Leprechauns I Found a Four Leaf Clover Dr. Seuss April Poems and Activities: Rainforests (Nonfiction) Animals Preparing For Winter Tarantulas (nonfiction) Penguins (nonfiction) May Poems and Activities: My Neighbor's Dog is Purple Raining Gumbals Text Evidence Short Passages June Poems and Activities: Sharks (nonfiction passages) Bats (nonfiction passages) Five Little Spiders Here are some of my book activities: Winter Book Bundle Ish The Emperor's Penguin The Giving Tree & The Great Kapok Tree Fall Book Activity Bundle

A blog about teaching ideas and free resources, focusing on kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, and fourth grade.

Word Tree FLUENCY practice pages. Fall, Winter, and Spring BUNDLED!Reading Fluency Pages using Word Trees for fluency practice.Sight Words, phrasing, and vocabulary help students master reading with continued practice. Single pages or 2 on a page, booklet style. Images in both color and B/W.All 3 Bu...

Phrasing is a large component of oral reading fluency and is directly linked to comprehension and overall reading proficiency. Students who read word by word often have difficulty with reading comprehension, but luckily there are many interventions and resources that can help! 'SCOOP IT' TASK CARDS “Scoop It” fluency task cards are an effective tool for improving phrasing. With these fun and engaging task cards, students learn to 'scoop' up words into meaningful phrases. Your choppy readers will become smooth readers as they learn to read sentences using appropriate phrasing. There are eight sets of task cards in the series. Each

Hi, Teaching Friends! Whether you live in snowy Vermont or balmy Hawaii, kids everywhere love snowmen! What's not to love? Singing a rousing thumpety-thump-thump of "Frosty" or pouring on the glue and glitter to make your own crafty version, snowmen are just plain fun! Add a good helping of sight words, some patterned text and sequencing in, and snowmen become another great opportunity for learning. Hey, Mr. Snowman! is a great way for your K's and firsties to listen to a story that will soon become accessible text to nearly all of them! Download a free printable 8 1/2 X 11 version here. Then expand the learning opportunities with the set of coordinating literacy center activities that you'll find here. This set includes... * 2 printable versions of a guided reading book with the same text as the read-aloud version * A Readers' Theater version of the text * Sentence strips and word cards to use at the pocket chart * Props for improvising a new story {think, "Hey, Mr. Snowman, where are your sunglasses?" } * 3 writing prompt pages to extend the Mr. Snowman story You can make an entire Mr. Snowman literacy center with these activities. Your needier students will get lots of chances to read and reread basic sight words, and to attempt new words based on first letter and picture support. Those who need a challenge will enjoy creating and writing new adventures for Mr. Snowman. All of your students will benefit from the many opportunities offered in this story for fluency practice with inflection, reading the punctuation, phrasing, and using bold/italicized print. Happy Teaching!

A blog about teaching ideas and free resources, focusing on kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, and fourth grade.

Fluency Practice with Sight Words. Holiday-themed fluency practice pages. Printables for students to practice phonics, sight words, and fluency. Great independent activity for small group time. Students practice reading a sentence word by word, phrase by phrase until they have read the complete sent...