Stories for Reading Practice

We are always looking for a range of stories for beginning adult readers to read to us for three reasons:

(1) practice fluency,

(2) develop comprehension skills, and

(3) build vocabulary.

Listed below are typically single page stories that may often be read through in a single setting.  

Here is a list of sites that are offering free stories that can be used for all three reasons listed above:

• Clark Ness’s site (http://www.clarkness.com/) has a long list of very simple stories, especially good for beginners. All of his work includes pictures. Way at the bottom of his web site are a few longer pieces.
• This site http://fres.wpusd.org/subsites/Carol-Anderson/Fluency-Practice/ contains 5 sets of (fluency) stories. Each set (pdf) has 20 stories. At the bottom of each story is a speed. This speeds indicate the longest time the pieces should take to read aloud. Reading aloud should be with expression and with no errors. These stories range from first to sixth grade.
• Mr. Anker’s site (http://www.henryanker.com/FluencyMasters.html) contains twenty K-5^th grade level passages, ten 6-8^th grade level passages, and thirty-five 9-12^th grade level passages.
• Think Fluency’s site http://www.thinkfluency.com/reading-passages/ contains six passages for each of five grade levels (grades 1 – 5).
• Mrs. Warner’s Learning Community (https://mrswarnerarlington.weebly.com/fluency-practice.html) suggests that fourth graders should end the year reading at least 118 wpm. Her site includes 3^rd grade passages (4 easy, 4 average, 4 advanced), 4^th grade passages (4 easy, 4 average, 4 advanced), eight 5^th grade passages, and eight 6^th grade passages.

Please use these stories with learners. Together, decide which stories work best for each learner.

Enjoy!

PS The picture above is misleading. Why? This picture represents some great books for reading together, but these are not the stories listed below. The books in the photo require great amounts of work - rereading, retelling, and summarizing - for our adults to be able to read them. That's why we read these types of books over time in small groups. Eventually, these books become approachable and readable for our adults. In the beginning, however, one-page stories from the sites listed above help our learners grow site vocabulary one-page-at-a-time chunks.