READING FLUENCY

What might fluency practice look like in the classroom?

To view our Literacy

Actively teaching reading fluency to struggling pupils can be beneficial. This tool Guidance reports,
offers practical classroom examples to support developing pupils’ reading fluency. visit the EEF website:

eef.li/guidance

What the evidence tells us: Possible approaches–

Whole class Small group & 1:1

fluency practice fluency intervention

Developing early reading can often be integrated • Routinely incorporate rich opportunities for children • For children at the upper end of the Early Years, find
Early Years successfully with communication and language approaches. to sing songs, recite rhymes and learn poems by opportunities for them to re-read familiar books so
Examples Children are likely to benefit from singing and rhyming
heart during story time. These can be rehearsed over that they can apply the skills of fluent reading with
and over, with and without a copy of the text. little difficulty. For example, an adult might ask a child
activities focused on developing alphabetic knowledge and
to use their story-telling voice to re-read their familiar
phonological awareness to lay the groundwork for decoding. • Read aloud from picture books with repeated refrains
book to a partner, pretending to be the teacher.
so that children can start to join in and emulate
prosodic reading. For example, an adult might read • Use echo reading to model the prosody required to
‘I Want My Hat Back’ by Jon Klassen daily with the bring the text to life and re-read sentences until a
children, sweeping their finger under the phrases good level of fluency is achieved by the child.
to model expert prosody and pausing so that all
children can chorally recite the refrain and practise
using good prosody.

From the earliest opportunity, reading should be presented • Repeated reading aloud from picture books, ensuring • Find opportunities for children to re-read familiar
Key Stage 1 as the process of understanding a text. children can see the text, helps to developing books matched to their level of decoding so that they
Examples As children learn the complex skill of reading, we help
familiarity. Encourage children to read along (where can confidently apply the skills of fluent reading with
words and phrases are accessible for them) and to little difficulty.
develop skills of word recognition, reading fluency and
read with good prosody.
making sense of a text. • Incorporate repeated reading, self-correction
• Sing songs and perform poetry together, providing the and choral reading to explicitly improve children’s
text for the children to follow, rehearse and perform. prosody. For example, children might read and re-
read ‘What is Pink?’ by Christina Rosetti, with the
teacher modelling good prosody and the children
echoing along.

* This resource was developed with the support of colleagues from Herts for Learning.

What might fluency practice look like in the classroom?

 What the evidence tells us: Possible approaches–

Whole class Small group & 1:1

fluency practice fluency intervention

Key Stage Most pupils will benefit from being explicitly taught and • When reading from a class text, model strategies such • Provide motivational opportunities for pupils to re-read
being encouraged to practise through guided oral reading as exploration of morphology or etymology to read a text many times. For example, a group of pupils
2 Examples instruction and repeated reading. unfamiliar words with accuracy and find opportunities might practice and perform a text already shared with
for repeated reading to build automaticity. For the class using ‘Readers’ Theatre’ to support oral
Reading accuracy and automaticity can also be
example, when reading ‘Atlas of Adventures’ by reading development.
supported by building children’s knowledge of aspects
Lucy Letherland, the teacher might focus on and
of word structure such as common letter combinations • Provide pupils with bespoke book recommendations
discuss the meaning of the word ‘spectacular’. They
(orthographic awareness) and the meaningful parts within for independent reading, which are matched to
might highlight the root word ‘spect’, model how to
words (morphological awareness). interest and pitched at a level to enable effortless,
pronounce the word and then link to other words that
confident reading.
contain the same root such as ‘spectate’, ‘inspect’
and ‘respect’.
• Sing songs and perform poetry, speeches,
monologues and playscripts together. Provide texts
for pupils to follow, re-read, rehearse and perform.

Key Stage While most pupils begin secondary school with the • When reading from a class text, model appropriate • Provide motivational opportunities for pupils to
general skills and knowledge needed to read accurately, strategies to tackle the meaning of unfamiliar words. re‑read familiar texts. For example, using a poem
3 Examples fluently and with comprehension, some do not. Encourage repeated reading of the word to build from ‘The Crossover’ by Kwame Alexander, pupils
accuracy and automaticity. might practise reading a stanza each repeatedly,
Given the complexity of academic reading, pupils need to
coming together to perform the poem.
be able to deploy an array of reading strategies, which can • For example, in a science lesson might involve pupils
be modelled and practised in the classroom to develop revisiting prior learning on reaction energy and • Use echo and choral reading when working
students as strategic readers. catalysts. To support the decoding and automaticity closely with small groups or 1:1 to support oral
of newly learned tier 3 words ‘exothermic’ and reading development.
‘endothermic’, the whole class might choral read a
short paragraph in unison to ensure all pupils are
given the opportunity to practise reading these words
aloud in context

Terminology Echo reading is a rereading strategy where the Choral reading is when a small group or Morphology is the study of words and their Etymology is the study of the origin of words.
teacher reads a segment of text aloud and the whole class read aloud together. parts e.g. prefixes and suffixes.
pupils echo it back.

What might fluency practice look like in the classroom?