Your student is done with decodable books (also known as phonics books). Now, he needs books for fluency practice. Fluency is reading speed. After a student learns single-syllable word strategies (words like light, sand, treat…etc.), he needs to pick up speed. There are specific books, called sight readers, designed to help kids read faster. Sight readers are written to help the second grade slow reader.
There are lots of fun sight readers available. I’ve outlined my favorites.
Books for Fluency Practice
Frog and Toad
A classic book series. Frog and toad are best friends. They live a simple life and learn timeless lessons together. Frog is the more optimistic one, always cheerful and encouraging. Yet, when left alone, frog is sad. Toad is the grumpier one, always hesitant to try new things, and questions nearly everything. Yet, toad has moments of wisdom and clarity. They make fun memories together and uplift each other. Frog and Toad show that friendship can unite people with different dispositions. That friendship is about laughing, listening, learning and having fun.
Frog and Toad is excellent for kids that are just breaking out of decodables. They are perfect beginning books for fluency practice.
Fancy Nancy
Fancy Nancy is a humorous book series about a little girl that’s obsessed with everything fancy. She strives to be posh, and wears exquisite outfits, bejeweled tiaras and the occasional high heel or mermaid tail. She prefers French words like “bonjour.” When she realizes her family is plain, she tries to dress them up. Even her dog must follow strict standards of splendidness. Even if you’re the plainest person alive, you’ll start to adore Fancy Nancy. She is truly uniquely, fearlessly herself. And we all can admire her confidence.
Fancy Nancy is excellent for kids that have some exposure to uncommon sight words. They are a higher level than Frog and Toad. Yet, they are still excellent books for fluency practice.
Fox Series by Edward & James Marshall
Fox likes to make a fuss about everything. He doesn’t like to listen to his mom. His mischievous ways get him into trouble. Yet, sometimes his thirst for attention lands him an adventure. He gets to march in a parade and even gets on TV. Fox is also clumsy and he’s constantly tripping. When he falls, he likes to feign great injuries and yells for his mom to call the doctor. Everyone in the story knows Fox loves attention, and they all are amused by his hilarious ways.
The Fox series can have difficult stories to follow. It’s important to stop and have discussions to help aid reading comprehension. Fox are great books for fluency practice.
Pets to the Rescue by Andrew Clements
Pets to the Rescue is a book series about animals that save people’s lives. They are all true stories. Many kids love reading true stories. At the sight reader level, there aren’t too many true stories available. Kids that are trying to build fluency are often stuck on fiction books they don’t like. Pets to the Rescue is a great option for those kids who love animals and who think books like “Frog and Toad” are boring.
They are excellent books for fluency practice.
Break out of Books for Fluency Practice
There is no better way to build fluency than extensive reading. Encourage your student to read sight readers. Watch him gain speed. After they gain speed, immediately find books at a higher level. Breaking out of decodables is a very exciting step in the reading process. Breaking out of sight readers is equally exciting!
If you found this post helpful, you might like What is Fluency? How to Improve Fluency?
Please be very careful when referencing “speed” in your fluency definition. You state here that “Fluency is speed.” That is a very weak definition of fluency and one that should not be offered to parents. While reading rate is an integral component of fluency, it should not be equated to “speed”. The end result for a fluent reader is NOT to be doing speed reading, but to be able to adjust the rate of reading depending on the material being read. “We know of no compelling research that shows when students are taught to read faster they improve their reading comprehension or overall reading achievement.” Timothy Rasinski
Speed is an important part of fluency. For other elements of reading, including expressive reading, we can use the term prosody. Fluency includes both reading speed and prosody in its definition. However, I believe prosody is overemphasized. A fluent, comprehending reader will automatically get the intonation, emphasis and phrasing right. Efforts to focus on prosody are misguided. Instead, the focus should be on systematic phonics in early grades, exposure to lots of texts, exposure to various texts, and reading comprehension strategies. Once the child reads accurately, fast enough, has a broad vocabulary and can use reading comprehension strategies, she inevitably will get the prosody right.
Reading speed is very important for reading comprehension, though of course, there are other elements to reading comprehension. We speak at over 150 words per minute. We’re used to receiving language rapidly. It’s very difficult to stay focused on slow language. Just read a book aloud at a very slow rate, and you’ll find it’s difficult to understand, even as an expert reader.
As Maryann Wolf in Proust and the Squid wrote, “With its decoding process almost automatic, the young fluent brain learns to integrate more metaphorical, inferential, analogical, affective background and experiential knowledge with every newly won millisecond” (p. 143).