This packet of 41 short selections can be used regularly over the course of a school year to help students build fluency. There are enough passages to work on one per week - to two weeks. This source provides a protocol outlining strategies to engage students in short, daily fluency practice. Teachers can also send passages home for additional practice. To access the packet, select "View File" to download.

This packet is designed to strengthen the components of reading fluency: accuracy, rate, and prosody (expression). Students should understand what they are reading, thus embedded supports, such as student glossaries and ‘right there’ comprehension questions, are included. However, these passages are not intended for close reading or deep comprehension work.

Note for teachers of English Language Learners (ELLs): Regular fluency practice is essential for helping ELLs improve their overall literacy skills. Those acquiring a second language benefit especially from additional support with decoding, pronunciation, word identification, and prosody—all of which are the focus of regular fluency practice. Activities found in the Achieve the Core Fluency Packet reflect several best practices for English Language Learner instruction including:
• Having a text read aloud by a fluent reader prior to the student engaging with the text.
• Giving students multiple opportunities to hear the text read aloud by a fluent reader so that they can mirror the pronunciation and prosody of well-spoken English.
• Providing repeated opportunities for students to practice decoding skills both on their own and with support via active monitoring.
• Providing opportunities for students to learn new vocabulary through the use of student-friendly definitions, and to reinforce newly learned vocabulary through repeated practice with the same text and opportunities to use that vocabulary to respond to comprehension questions.
• Calling out work with “juicy sentences,” a strategy developed by Dr. Lily Wong Fillmore, that allows students to look deeply at word choice, sentence structure, and other text features that build their understanding of how English is used to convey different meanings.
• Providing numbered lines that allow students to quickly focus-in on specific sections of the text.
• Providing space for students to annotate the text with their own notes.

Students will produce words using inflections. Reproducible materials are included in the PDF.

Students will identify variant correspondences in words. Reproducible materials are included in the PDF.

Sttudents will produce words with variant correspondences. Reproducible materials are included in the PDF.

For this online interactive, students pick a color according to the color-vowel key and fill each word block according to the long and short vowel sounds. Students have fun with colors as they reinforce their concept of short and long vowels and learn new words. This is an interesting way to build students' vowel identification skills.

For this online interactive, students practice their comprehension skills by listening to a story and answering questions about the story. There are several stories to choose from with four questions at the end of each story.

Students read the words in the box and use them to complete each sentence.

Students read the words in the box and use them to complete each sentence.

Experiencing the language of great poets provides a rich learning context for students, giving them access to the best examples of how words can be arranged in unique ways. By studying the works of renowned poets across cultures and histories, students extract knowledge about figurative language and poetic devices from masters of the craft. In this lesson, students learn about personification by reading and discussing poems that feature this writing device. Then they use the poems as a guide to brainstorm lists of nouns and verbs that they randomly arrange to create personification in their own poems.

For this online interactive, students read the story and answer the questions by typing their response in the box. This activity increases students' reading fluency, comprehension, and analytical skills.

Paraphrasing helps students make connections with prior knowledge, demonstrate comprehension, and remember what they have read. Through careful explanation and thorough modeling by the teacher in this lesson, students learn to use paraphrasing to monitor their comprehension and acquire new information. They also realize that if they cannot paraphrase after reading, they need to go back and reread to clarify information. In pairs, students engage in guided practice so that they can learn to use the strategy independently. Students will need prompting and encouragement to use this strategy after the initial instruction is completed. The lesson can be extended to help students prepare to write reports about particular topics.

This unit was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for Kindergarten ELA in Reading Foundational Skills.

In this lesson, students combine vocabulary exploration with word play by planning their own vocabulary parade, modeled on the activities in the text after a read-aloud of the picture book, Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster. Students brainstorm a list of vocabulary terms from a recent unit of study and then design concrete ways to illustrate the terms. The presentation of terms can be in the form of a parade, or a video, which might play during parent conferences or open house.

For this online interactive, students recognize and recall dolch sight words by flipping the cards and making a pair of the matching words. This activity is desgined to sharpen students' memory skills and build their vocabulary which aids in improving their reading skills.

For this online interactive, students read the set of words and identify the ones that rhyme. Audio reinforcements are given as student make a match. Students are given five opportunities to match rhyming words.

For this activity, students identify variant correspondences in words. Reproducible materials are included in the PDF.

For this online interactive, students drag and drop the correct positional word that fits the sentence. A picture is shown for each sentence so students can see the position of the various objects in the picture. Students gain an awareness and understanding of the relative positon of objects in their surroundings.

This lesson, "Skim, Scan, and Scroll," taken from a research skills unit, is a step towards students completing a written research report. Here, students learn to read informational text, looking for supporting details. After the skills of skimming and scanning printed and electronic texts are modeled by the teacher, students practice the skills on their own.

For this online interactive, students find different sets of rhyming words through a simple maze activity. Student connect rhyming words together as they make their way through the maze.