Fluency in First Grade

We're working hard on fluency in my first grade classroom right now.  My top reading group is doing fabulously on decoding words and recognizing sight words.  Several of them are reading on 2nd to 3rd grade levels! :)  But they still need lots of practice with fluency.  This week I sent home their first fluency homework packet, and boy did they love it!!  I've created packets for January, February, and March, and I'm already hard at work on the April and May packets.  I play to go back and work on packets for September through December as well. 

Here are some of the things we're doing:

 We read some fluency passages like robots in our Toobaloo Whisper Phones.  Then we re-read the passages fluently and talked about the difference in the two readings.

 We read my original poem about Grady the Groundhog and discussed inferences and rhyming words.  The students read this poem with such expression as the week went on!  (They were also pretty impressed that their teacher had written the poem...I felt like a celebrity! ;) )

 They read the fluency passage on Tuesday night and then again on Thursday night, timing themselves each night.  Again, it was so fun to see their timing and expression improve.  They also got the chance to decode some challenging words in this passage.

 My students love Roll and Reads!  They did this activity Tuesday night at home.  Then we brought it back out on Friday, and I paired them with someone in a lower reading group so they could do this together and offer support to their friend.  Again, super fun!

Each fluency packet features four weeks of homework (or classwork/small group work depending on how you want to use it).  My kids are already looking forward to next week's packet.  The February packet includes the themes of:  Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, President's Day, and Teeth!

Since next week is Valentine's week we'll work on a Valentine's Reader's Theater and a few fluency games (also included in the packet):

You can check out the packet here:

Or the Jan-March bundle here:

  Here's some of the sweet feedback I've received about these packets.  So thankful and blessed to know I'm helping other students and teachers, too.

Here's the Groundhog Day freebie you can sample first:

Later this week, I'll share the fluency activities I'm doing with my lower reading group. :)

Congrats to First Grade Carousel for winning my Winter Fluency Homework packet Pin It to Win It contest!  I'm emailing you now.  :)