My child can sound out words fine. Why would they need fluency tutoring?

Decoding and fluency aren't the same skill. A child can accurately sound out every word on a page and still read so slowly or choppily that comprehension suffers. At Kids Up Reading Tutors, fluency tutoring targets the automaticity and pacing that accurate decoding alone doesn't build.

My child is older and still reads slowly. Is it too late to work on fluency?

No, it's never too late to work on fluence! Fluency gaps are common in older kids and teens, especially those with dyslexia who learned to decode accurately but never became automatic readers. Kids Up Reading Tutors works with students through high school (plus a few college students), adjusting materials to fit the student's age while targeting the missing underlying skills.

What's the difference between a fluency tutor and a reading tutor?

A reading tutor works on multiple aspects of reading, including phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, and comprehension. Fluency is one piece of that picture. Most students with fluency struggles also have some gaps in decoding or word recognition, so sessions with Kids Up Reading Tutors address fluency alongside those related skills rather than in isolation.

How long does fluency tutoring take?

How long fluency tutoring take depends on the individual student's gaps. Many students see noticeable improvement in pacing, expression, and stamina within a few months of starting with Kids Up Reading Tutors, though students with larger underlying decoding and other skill gaps may need longer.

Online Reading Fluency Tutoring for Kids and Teens

Moving From Sounding Out Words to Reading With Ease.

What Is Reading Fluency, and Why Does It Matter?

Reading fluency is the ability to read accurately, at a natural pace, and with expression, all at the same time. It's one of the five pillars of effective reading instruction identified by the National Reading Panel (2000), alongside phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension.

A fluent reader can:

Read words accurately
Recognize many words automatically
Read at a natural pace and with expression
Focus on understanding the text

Reading quickly without accuracy or comprehension is not fluent reading. A child who races through a page but can't tell you what just happened in the story isn't reading fluently, no matter how fast they went.

"She seems to be flying through Diary of a Pug, not getting tripped up on too many words, handling some tricky words well, understanding the story as she reads, and clearly enjoying it with her dramatic renditions."

3rd Grade

Why Reading May Still Be Slow and Effortful

Fluency problems often trace back to gaps in phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling patterns, or automatic word recognition. A child can learn to decode simple words accurately and still struggle once the words get longer, the sentences get more complex, or the text goes on for more than a page.

This is especially common in children with dyslexia. Many learn to read accurately with the right instruction, but accuracy alone doesn't make reading automatic. They still need targeted practice to become smoother, more efficient readers.

At Kids Up, we identify the exact skills your child is missing and teach them precisely what they need to learn in order to become a fluent reader.

Concerned about your child's fluency?

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How Kids Up Builds Fluency

Fluency instruction at Kids Up is matched to what each child actually needs, not a one-size-fits-all drill. Depending on the student, tutoring may include:

Multisyllabic decoding. Many kids can sound out short words but stall on longer ones. We teach students to break words into syllables and chunks so longer words stop being a guessing game.
Sight word automaticity. Common words need to be recognized instantly, not sounded out every time. We build that automatic recognition so a student's attention stays on the meaning of the sentence, not the mechanics of each word.
Repeated oral reading with immediate feedback. Practice reading the same passage aloud multiple times, with real-time correction and support, is one of the most well-supported ways to build fluency.
Punctuation, pacing, and expression. Fluent reading sounds like speech. We work on phrasing, pausing at punctuation, and reading with natural expression, all of which also support comprehension.

"I noticed that my daughter (who was going into the 6th grade) was struggling reading fluently and pronouncing certain words that should come easily to someone her age... Daniella and Caitlin worked with her for over 3 months and they transformed her into a strong, confident reader."

6th Grade

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Help Your Child Read With Greater Ease and Confidence

As fluency improves, children often read with fewer - or sometimes more! - pauses, stronger expression, and better stamina. Because they're spending less mental energy identifying each word, they have more energy left to focus on what the text actually means.

Kids Up Reading Tutors provides online, one-on-one reading fluency tutoring for children and teens with dyslexia and other reading difficulties.

Book a Free 30-Min Parent Call

"We are reading some of our same books but she reads them now with feeling and emotions because of the confidence... Looking for punctuations and how to make the words become a story vs. looking at the words in fear."

Kindergarten, Edwardsville, IL