As you begin your focus on fluency with your students, you’re going to want to grab your go-to reading fluency passages for 5th Grade! Reading fluency passages are a great way to get students to practice a wide variety of fluency skills. With a short passage, students can improve their reading skills, as well as all aspects of fluency. That includes accuracy, expression, pace, smoothness, and comprehension. Progress monitoring passages often include the number of words for each passage, with the goal of increasing a student’s reading speed. While it is important to focus on not reading too slowly, or too quickly, it’s also important to make sure students are reading for meaning. Reading passages with reading comprehension questions allow students to show what they know, about their texts. Third graders, fourth grade students, and fifth grade students all make a big shift to reading for meaning vs learning to read. Having your own set of go-to reading fluency passages for your 5th grade students makes it much simpler to focus on fluency.
Benefits of Focusing on Reading Fluency for 5th Grade
There are many benefits of focusing on reading fluency for 5th Grade students.
- Accuracy- Students can improve their actual reading skills to help them read grade level appropriate text. As their decoding becomes more natural and immediate, students can then begin focusing on other aspects of their reading.
- Expression- There are times when fifth grade students are expected to read aloud. It may be 1 on 1 with a teacher, in a partner activity, at a literacy center, or during a presentation of some sort. If students are reading aloud, it is much more interesting to the person listening, when they use expression. It not only sounds better, but also helps students have a clear understanding of what is being read.
- Pace- Fluency practice also gives students the chance to read with appropriate pacing.
- This is a huge confidence booster because they in turn get through texts quicker, with better understanding.
- They no longer need to spend as much time decoding new words, which pulls away from actual comprehension, as well as reading style.
- Smoothness- Fifth grade students also need to know when to chunk phrases or words together in reading fluency passages. When they can do this in a smooth manner, their reading becomes that much better. It no longer sounds separated and disjointed. Instead, it flows in an enjoyable way.
- Comprehension- When students focus on reading for meaning, they pay closer attention to the selected text. Whether it is a fiction, or nonfiction grade-level text, a poem, or reader’s theatre script, students can focus on understanding the text.
- Vocabulary skills can also improve when students are focusing on the meaning of each word, as they read fluency passages.
- Reading comprehension questions as a follow up to a fluency passage instantly provides insight to the teacher with regard to the student’s ability to understand what they read.
Reading Fluency Passages for 5th Grade
These reading fluency passages for 5th grade are ready to use- simply download the printable PDF, make copies for your students, and pass them out. You’ll want each student to have fluency passages that are most lined up to their independent reading level. Each fluency resource you use should have the goal of helping the student improve their fluency skills. If given a fluency passage practice page at a level that is too challenging for a 5th grade student, it will defeat the purpose of focusing on fluency. Those students will instead be working too hard at decoding words. With these reading fluency passages for 5th grade, students can work on a selected text, or leveled passage, that is most appropriate for their individual reading abilities. You may even want to consider grabbing the bundle for third graders, fourth grade students, and fifth grade students. With a combination of levels included, you’re sure to find a reading fluency passage practice page for all your students!
These reading fluency passages are used by a wide variety of teachers. Since they come with reading comprehension questions, teachers find them to be an all encompassing resource. More specifically, reading teachers use them with their struggling readers as a way to improve progress monitoring scores, for Words Per Minute (WPM). Special education teachers or intervention teachers often use these as a way to help students work on their decoding or fluency goals.
Classroom teachers use these in multiple ways:
- Small group as a warm up read
- Literacy center where students can record themselves reading, or simply to repeated readings.
- Independent reading as repeated reading practice.
- To send home for extra practice- parents LOVE these!
As you know, reading rate and pace are a big part of fluency. One of the simplest ways to improve reading rate and fluent reading is via repeated readings. Fluency passages are a great way to help students improve their reading rate and reading speed. They’re easy for you to use, but also interesting for students because you can switch up what they’re reading, frequently. One of the keys to focusing on fluency is to keep students engaged when working on it! This can be done through the inclusion of a variety of materials, and reading passages.
If you’re someone who likes to expose your students to a variety of genres, you’ll be happy to know that I also have reading fluency passages that are nonfiction. I think it’s so important to practice reading fluently with a variety of texts: fiction, nonfiction, and even poetry!
Help Your 5th Grade Students Improve their Reading Fluency Skills
You can help your 5th grade students improve their reading fluency skills by grabbing these reading fluency passages for 5th grade. The bundle may be even more helpful as a way to help reach more of your readers, with the exact same activity. If you want to try these out first, you can also grab these free oral reading fluency passages for upper elementary students, specifically 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students.
Want more fluency passages for your 3rd-5th grade students? Check out this blog post all about reading fluency passages!
