Teaching kids how to read can be a humbling experience; it takes time and practice to become a proficient reader in any language. If you are anything like me you are tired of kids telling 1.2 seconds after they started reading that ‘ya terminé’ or ¿Qué hago ahora? when they are supposed to be building their stamina to become a better reader.
As a first grade bilingual teacher, I see too many kids skipping letters, lines, and pages because 1. they think reading is a race or 2. they don’t yet understand the importance of taking their time sound out all syllables and words to become a proficient reader. I decided to see if isolating one line of text at a time would help kids focus on the task at hand; becoming proficient readers in Spanish.
Enter ‘Spanish Reading Fluency Strips’ or ‘tiras de fluidez’. There is a little prep involved in this but it is something that your dual immersion Kindergarteners, first graders and other students that need some reading intervention can use. Each page consists of eight lines of text. Many high-frequency words in Spanish are used to ensure students are able to get extra exposure to them.
I do the prep work for this and it would take forever for a kindergartener or 1st grader to do this much cutting. I also laminate my fluency strips to ensure they last longer once my students get their hands on them. I use two types of Spanish fluency strips— syllables for your beginning readers and the story or regular sets for your students that are emerging readers in Spanish.
To prep the Spanish fluency strips: 1. laminate 2. cut 3. punch holes 4. use a metal ring or brass fastener to attach the reading fluency strips together. Now your students are ready to use them. These work great to use in the classroom during intervention time, guided reading, independent practice, and some teachers even send the passage home for reading homework. Other teachers told me they have used to the passages as an informal assessment to see how their student’s reading fluency is progressing and monitor what they still need help on.
Once you introduce Spanish fluency strips to your class they won’t be able to get enough. The regular story packs also come with a ‘two versions of a ‘Yo puedo leer.’ reading log where students color the icon that goes with the strips they read after reading them multiple times. This is a great way for students to track their progress as they go through each of the icons or sets available.
Have you used Spanish Profe’s Spanish Fluency Reading or Syllable sets in your classroom? Let us know how they worked for your class. Do you have any further questions about implementing this resource in your classroom? Let us know.
