Using Sentence Pyramids to Increase Fluency
As I sat on the sidelines watching my daughter play lacrosse the other day, I was amazed at the progress she has made. This was her first year playing the sport, but when you watch her, she looks like she’s been playing it her entire life. I didn’t have to wonder why this was - it was obvious to me. She had put in the work. She had put in the time. She had put in the effort. Her coach pushed her to practice hard and play even harder. During practice, they work on drills like catching, blocking, and shooting. And while these are necessary lacrosse skills, I believe what made her a strong player was actually playing the game and applying these skills in real time.
So, today I am sharing my favorite way to build fluency AND giving you a freebie to go with it!
After I thought about it some more, the concept came to me: This is exactly what it’s like learning to read. We practice and drill first, learning letters and sounds, then we move to put those letters and sounds together to read words. Much like my daughter and her lacrosse team, we practice, practice, and practice again. But often what happens is that we stop there. As teachers, we can spend so much time at the skill level, that we forget to apply what’s actually being studied at the context level. But, this is actually where we need to spend the most time.
If we only ask our students to read words in isolation, we never give them the “playing time” they need. And besides, words were never meant to be read just one time by themselves. They were meant to be read in passages, poems, and stories as a whole entity. So how do we bridge the gap from decoding in isolation to comprehension? The answer is simple: fluency!
When we hear the word “fluency” one of the first words we think of is how? Elementary teachers in the lower grades oftentimes can feel a bit lost when it comes to teaching fluency because it seems like something to work on in the upper grades. But the truth is that we can and should work on fluency in these early years.
The question is, how do we help our students move past the word-by-word struggle and into a decodable where they’re reading fluently? How do we give them the practice they need while still pushing them to become fluent and encouraging them to be mature readers? An activity that works great for easing into decodable texts is something called fluency pyramids.
Fluency pyramids are an intervention tool used to increase students’ reading fluency. Each pyramid is a controlled/decodable text that begins with one word. On each line, a subsequent word is added. By the time they get to the base of the pyramid (the full sentence), they’ve read all of the words already except for one. This allows students to focus on one “new” word at a time. Students repeat other words over and over and therefore this helps improve their automaticity and expression with each reading.
Below is how to use this helpful intervention tool in your classroom. And the best part is? It’s super easy to prep!
Using Fluency Pyramids
Decide what phonics skills you plan to cover. What phonics skills do your students need to work on?
Print the corresponding fluency pyramids. You can choose to do this on plain or colored paper.
Model reading the fluency pyramids for students. Go at an appropriate pace, using inflection and expression. One of the best ways we can teach our students good fluency is by modeling it for them.
Throw in some fun! Use some manipulatives like pom poms, mini erasers, unifix cubes, or anything cute and small to make it engaging for them.
Extend it! The goal is fluency here, so we can’t simply just practice it once in small groups and be done. Laminate the sentences, throw them on a binder ring, and toss it in a literacy station the kids can visit over and over again!
These little pyramids may not seem like much because their concept is simple, but there is so much benefit in them. Fluency is so important, so it’s vital to use all of the tools and resources we have to help our struggling readers. If you want to get started using fluency grids right away, click here and snag this free bundle!
