Routine · Fluency
Reading in phrases
Read a text marked with slashes at phrase breaks, so the student groups words the way speech does.
- Time
- 4 to 7 minutes
- Skill
- Fluency
- In a session plan
- Reading connected text
When to use it
For students who read accurately but in a flat, word by word voice, or who ignore punctuation.
Materials
- A copy of the text with a slash between phrases and two slashes at sentence ends
- The same text without marks
Steps
Get ready
Show the marked text. Explain that a slash means a tiny pause and two slashes mean a longer stop.
I do
Read the first two sentences, pausing at each mark, so the student hears words grouped in meaningful chunks.
We do
Read the next sentences together, sweeping a finger under each phrase as one chunk.
You do
The student reads the rest of the marked text alone, then reads the plain text.
Student: Reads in phrases, first with the marks, then without them.
Check
Ask the student to draw slashes on a new sentence where they would pause, then read it.
If the student...
Pauses after every word anyway.
Read one phrase as a chunk. Have the student echo it, then read the next phrase with you, then alone. Go back to the start of the sentence.
Tips
- Phrases are usually short: a few words that belong together, such as in the big box.
- One to one, the student can mark the slashes on their own copy after the first passage.
Original routines written by Literacy Trail. In the app, every routine is filled with your student's lesson.
Related routines
- Echo and choral readingYou read a sentence and the student echoes it; then you read together in one voice.4 to 7 minutes · Reading connected text
- Repeated readingRead the same short decodable passage three or four times, a little smoother each time.5 to 8 minutes · Reading connected text
- First read of decodable textRead sentences or a short passage made of words the student can decode, using today's pattern.4 to 8 minutes · Reading connected text
- Timed reading with a graphTime a one-minute reading of the same passage over several days and graph the words read correctly.5 to 8 minutes · Reading connected text
Have this routine filled in for every lesson
In Literacy Trail, the session plan picks a routine for each block and fills it with the words, sounds and sentence from your student's lesson. Every plan starts with a 15-day free trial.