Early Literacy

Early Literacy and Oral Reading Fluency

Reading is the foundation of all learning, and you play a critical role in your child’s development. This page is designed to provide you with simple, effective strategies to support your reader at home, regardless of their grade level.

Why We Focus on Fluency
You will notice many of our resources focus on Oral Reading Fluency. This is because fluency is the key to reading comprehension. We consider a student “fluent” when they can read smoothly, naturally, and with feeling—just like they speak.

When a student struggles with fluency, reading feels like a chore. When they master it, reading becomes a joy. Use the tools below to practice reading smoothly with your child!

Reading Tips and Resources by Grade Level

Trimester 1 PDF

Direct practice and repetition

Repeated Reading: Encourage your child to read short passages, decodable books, or poems multiple times. This builds confidence and speed.
Decodable Books: Use books that focus on specific phonics patterns to help children apply what they’ve learned to text.
Fluency Passages: Provide short, repeated-read passages, which are great for children to practice, re-read and build confidence.

Interactive and partner activities

Echo Reading: The adult reads a sentence with expression, and the child reads it back, mimicking the adult.
Partner Reading: Children take turns reading sentences or paragraphs with a peer. This can be done by switching every sentence, or every paragraph as fluency improves.

Digital and auditory resources

Audiobooks and Listen-Along Books: Reading along with an audiobook or digital resource can improve pacing and expression.
Record and Listen: Have your child record themselves reading a passage correctly and then listen back to identify areas for improvement.
Online Games and Apps: Use online games, such as those on Starfall or ABCYa, to make practicing sight words and decoding more engaging.

Focus on Memory Words and Rhyming Words: Practice high-frequency words to help with automaticity, freeing up cognitive energy for comprehension.

Use Poems: Reciting poetry can be an enjoyable way to build fluency through rhythm and repetition.

Google Classroom Read Along (student records themself reading a story)	*must be first assigned by the classroom teacher
Practice reading decodable passages (Explicit instruction/syllable types fluencies)	*In Drive, would need to be copied and sent home
Read 15-20 minutes each night (read to someone, read to self, or someone reads to them)	Library books, or ask teacher for book recommendations
Audiobooks/E-books can be borrowed on Sora	*access through Launchpad
Audiobooks/E-books can be borrowed on Libby	App through the App Store: Need a public library card to make an account

Oral reading at home (fluency modeled by a fluent reader first).

Rereading builds fluency.

Listening to the audio of a text helps to improve rate and expression. The text must be present, as well, so the student can follow along while listening.

Google Classroom Read Along – must be first assigned by the classroom teacher.

I Survived… book series

School or local library recommendations

Family Read aloud (alternate pages)

Anything of interest at their independent reading level