Overview

MindPlay Reading Fluency enhances students' silent reading fluency by developing essential skills like visual scanning across the page and automatic word recognition. Students progress from visual scanning and high-frequency word matching to reading connected text smoothly.

Placement

The Universal Screener determines the student’s initial independent reading level, which sets the starting point for the Reading Fluency component. To ensure success and build confidence, students begin the fluency stories at one grade level below their screener-determined independent reading level (ex., if the Independent Reading Level is 4.5, Fluency will start at 3rd grade).

When students enter the story-reading activity for the first time, they are assigned four stories at the screener-determined reading level. If the student does not pass any of these four stories, the system automatically adjusts the fluency level down by one additional grade level to better match their current needs.

Reading Speed Adjustments

The initial word rate of the reading activity depends on the starting story grade level. If the student answers 85% of the comprehension questions correctly, the reading speed of the following activity is increased by ten words per minute. A question is correctly answered if the student selects the appropriate answer on the first attempt. If a student scores below 85%, the reading speed remains unchanged for the next story. The table below details the initial starting speeds and the required promotion speeds (measured in words per minute) for each story grade level.

When a student advances to a higher grade level, the word rate is reduced to 60% of the rate from their last activity at the previous grade. This adjustment ensures they can read fluently and comprehend the newly assigned grade level.

Grade Level Adjustments

The grade level of the stories is increased if the following conditions are met:

• The average score earned on the 5 most recent stories is 85% or better.
• The current word rate is at the promotion speed for the assigned story level.

Student Map

The student map is locked until students complete the first fluency practice of the day.

Students will have the option to do one additional fluency practice for every lesson they master in a day.

There are two ways to earn a check on the Fluency Widget:

1. The completion of a fluency practice.
2. The completion of an assigned comprehension lesson.

Note: The fluency widget resets every week.

Fluency Activity Sequence

1. Visual Scanning

Visual Scanning activities build focus, stamina, and automaticity to support fluent reading. Students start by tracking a target shape moving left to right, gradually progressing to more complex tasks with added distractors and eventually target numbers. Students count how many times the target appears. As students improve, they advance through levels, where tasks become more challenging and closely simulate reading demands.

2. Choose a Story

Students begin each fluency activity by selecting a story that interests them, allowing for a more personalized reading experience. This choice helps engage students by aligning the content with their interests, which can improve motivation and focus. By reading material they find appealing, students are more likely to stay invested in their fluency practice, making the learning process enjoyable and effective.

3. Word Match

Stories below grade 5 include a Story Word Match activity to ensure students have the reading skills for the assigned story level before they begin. This activity presents words from the story and the Fry Sight Words list to support fluency and word recognition.

4. Question Preview

Reading faster is only beneficial if a student comprehends the material. Before beginning the story, students are shown the questions or writing prompt they’ll answer afterward, simulating the process of reading for information, an essential skill in standardized tests and many real-life scenarios.

5. Fluency Passage 

There are two types of reading activities: single-line and multi-line. Both present a story to the student, but the text is displayed differently. 

• Single-Line Reading Activity: Only one line of the story is visible at a time, with the visible section moving from left to right at the student’s individualized word rate. As each line is completed, the following line appears in the same position, and the tracking continues—line by line—until the whole story has been presented.
• Multi-Line Reading Activity The Multi-Line Reading activity displays several lines of text at once, allowing students to practice reading with a broader visual span. Words gradually fade out at the target reading rate, prompting students to scan left to right and down the page, reinforcing fluent, continuous reading.

Reflective Writing

Every fifth story, students receive a reflective writing prompt in place of comprehension questions. This feature can be enabled or disabled based on instructional needs.

Grading

The response is automatically scored by AI and can be viewed on the student dashboard under the Fluency tab. Teachers can review each student’s complete response and adjust the rubric-based score as needed to ensure accurate evaluation by clicking on the score. The writing assignment will also be indicated by an orange circle on the activities graph.

Click here to view the grading rubric.