Shared Reading and Fluency With A FREEBIE!
Shared Reading and Fluency
Shared reading is a time when students and teachers experience a real sense of community.
Students feel like readers, as they “read” and enjoy big books and poems on large chart paper. The teacher points to the words as the children “read” in unison. This allows children to experience the joy of feeling like readers even on the first day of school. To make the experience even more worthwhile, look for “skills in context”!
Students locate a particular letter within the context of a big book or a poem on large chart paper.
We talk about where these letters occur in each word and say the words slowly to notice where we hear the sounds. This allows students to see the reason we are learning the sounds of the letters.
As the year progresses, we find blends, digraphs, rhyming words, sight words, compound words, contractions, etc. You can differentiate by doing that from day one and direct your questioning for more complex items to the students you know are capable of responding. Here is a reference sheet that contains a list of things you might ask students to locate.
FREEBIE!
I use removable highlighting tape to locate the letters on the large poem charts and in big books. I suggest using the WIDE tape, so that items can be highlighted more visibly. I cut them in a variety of sizes and place them on a laminated piece of construction paper. We peel them off as needed and then put them back onto the laminated paper after we have finished a highlighting session.
Amazon also sells refills in light green, yellow, purple, and blue.
Here is the green refill:
I have also used “frames” in a variety of sizes to “frame” letters and words of varying sizes. You can create them by cutting out rectangles of card stock and then cutting a window within the rectangles to create frames. The frames can be taped onto a ruler.

Students can also be asked to find the letters, phonetic elements, or words in individual copies of the poems, using a highlighter.
• Students see how learning a particular skill helps them to read words.
• A balanced approach to literacy should incorporate phonics into meaningful context and give students a purpose for learning phonics.
Students need the necessary drill and practice to master phonics as well.
Be sure to checkout my other blog posts on Phonics here.
If you need ideas for
I love shared reading time in my classroom!