Free Fluency Drills: 6th Grade
Use the Free PDF fluency drills below for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. This is a small sample from my Eclectic Speller that the students use to have fun reading and build reading fluency.
Sample Reading Fluency Drills all grades
Critical Thinking Reading Passages | College and Career Readiness
Critical thinking reading passages are the foundation of Socratic seminars and quality close reading. Selecting reading passages that inspire curiosity, critical thinking and can be used for either close reading or Socratic seminars takes pre-planning and a bit of text analysis. One of the best methods for selecting Critical Thinking Reading Passages is using a Syntopical examination of how many great ideas the passages contain. Dr. Mortimer J. Adler created a list of 103 philosophical topics that can be used to analyze text for the quality of ideas presented. Text selection is key to quality close reading and immersive Socratic seminars.
syntopical
- Referring to a type of analysis in which different works are compared and contrasted.
After finishing his syntopical reading of the leaders' speeches, he wrote an essay comparing the language used by Reagan, Carter, Gorbachev, and Qaddafi.
A list of 103 philosophical topics
ONE PAGE CRITICAL THINKING PASSAGES ALIGNED TO the COMMON CORE
Grade Level Fiction Passages
2nd-3rd Grade Reading Level
Grade Level Nonfiction Passages
2nd-3rd Grade Reading Level
Block Clubs infer and support the main idea of a passage
Chicago Fire sequence events, infer motive, and write about nonfiction
Chicago Legacy: Burnham's Plan locate and use information to analyze a situation, write about a topic
English /
Spanish
Chicago Legacy, DuSable's Choices and Changes locate and use information to analyze a situation, then write about it
English /
Spanish
Grant Park write an extended response about a nonfiction reading
A New Park evaluate information, summarize, and identify and support a main idea
Settlement infer and support the main idea of a passage
A New Day Realistic Fiction about the Election of Barack Obama and Civil Rights
Grade Level Nonfiction Passages
4th Grade Reading Level
Traveling West evaluate information, summarize, and identify and support a main idea
What is a Fable? evaluate information, summarize, and identify and support a main idea
Chicago Legacy: Burnham's Plan locate and use information to analyze a situation, write about a topic
English /
Spanish
Chicago Legacy, DuSable's Choices and Changes locate and use information to analyze a situation, then write about it
English /
Spanish
A Garden in Lawndale evaluate information, summarize, and identify and support a main idea (4th grade reading level)
Settlement infer and support the main idea of a passage
Space Food infer and support the main idea of a passage
What is a Fable? evaluate information, summarize, and identify and support a main idea
Grade Level Nonfiction Passages
5th Grade Reading Level
Chicago Legacy: Burnham's Plan locate and use information to analyze a situation, write about a topic
English /
Spanish
From Many Places evaluate information, summarize, and identify and support a main idea
Settlement infer and support the main idea of a passage
Who Am I sequence events, infer motive, and write about nonfiction
Grade Level Nonfiction Passages
6th Grade Reading Level
Nutrition Lesson evaluate information, summarize, and identify and support a main idea
Prairie Ecology evaluate information, summarize, and identify and support a main idea
Settlement analyze information in a nonfiction text
Grade Level Nonfiction Passages
7th Grade Reading Level
Honest Abe infer and support the main idea of a passage
Settlement infer and support the main idea of a passage
8th-10th Grade Reading Level
Grade Level Nonfiction Passages
8th-10th Grade Reading Level
Honest Abe infer and support the main idea of a passage
Settlement infer and support the main idea of a passage
Dr. Mortimer J. Adler Co-Founder and Chairman Center For the Study of the Great Ideas
The list of 103 ideas is broken between the two volumes, as follows:
Volume I:
Angel,
Animal,
Aristocracy,
Art,
Astronomy,
Beauty,
Being,
Cause,
Chance,
Change,
Citizen,
Constitution,
Courage,
Custom and Convention,
Definition,
Democracy,
Desire,
Dialectic,
Duty,
Education,
Element,
Emotion,
Eternity,
Evolution,
Experience,
Family,
Fate,
Form,
God,
Good and
Evil,
Government,
Habit,
Happiness,
History,
Honor,
Hypothesis,
Idea,
Immortality,
Induction,
Infinity,
Judgment,
Justice,
Knowledge,
Labor,
Language,
Law,
Liberty,
Life and
Death,
Logic, and
Love.
Volume II:
Man,
Mathematics,
Matter,
Mechanics,
Medicine,
Memory and
Imagination,
Metaphysics,
Mind,
Monarchy,
Nature,
Necessity and
Contingency,
Oligarchy,
One and
Many,
Opinion,
Opposition,
[13] Philosophy,
Physics,
Pleasure and
Pain,
Poetry,
Principle,
Progress,
Prophecy,
Prudence,
Punishment,
Quality,
Quantity,
Reasoning,
Relation,
[14] Religion,
Revolution,
Rhetoric,
Same and
Other,
Science,
Sense,
Sign and
Symbol,
Sin,
Slavery,
Soul,
Space,
State,
Temperance,
Theology,
Time,
Truth,
Tyranny and
Despotism,
Universal and
Particular,
Virtue and
Vice,
War and
Peace,
Wealth,
Will,
Wisdom, and
World.
How can a Dyslexic Reading Teacher HELP 95% of all at-risk students pass the EOG Reading Test? 10 Consecutive Years!
"Mr Taylor who annually starts with a class of fourth graders, 2/3 of whom are below grade level, and ends the year with most of the class at and above grade level. He gets results by emphasizing reading and writing, and holds students responsible for the work assigned. All the students read the same challenging books, stories and poems; they spend a lot of time on vocabulary, take notes, identify the main chapter idea and write a chapter summary every day. They read about six challenging books a year...Fortunately for his students, he puts them first and is determined that every student will make at least one year of progress in his class. Some students make spectacular gains in reading, writing or math. The average student this past year made about three years academic progress....His Title I students perform as well as students in the nearby "rich" area with all top-rated schools." Robert Cherba
Socratic Seminar Questions?
How do laws serve or harm justice?
Why is the concept of blind justice important?
The Logicians Refuted
Logicians have but ill defined
As rational, the human kind;
Reason, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can.
Wise Aristotle and Smiglesius,
By ratiocinations specious,
Have strove to prove, with great precision,
With definition and division,
Homo est ratione praeditum;
But for my soul I cannot credit 'em,
And must, in spite of them, maintain,
That man and all his ways are vain;
And that this boasted lord of nature
Is both a weak and erring creature;
That instinct is a surer guide
Than reason, boasting mortals' pride;
And that brute beasts are far before 'em.
Deus est anima brutorum.
Whoever knew an honest brute
At law his neighbour prosecute,
Bring action for assault or battery,
Or friend beguile with lies and flattery?
O'er plains they ramble unconfined,
No politics disturb their mind;
They eat their meals, and take their sport
Nor know who's in or out at court.
They never to the levee go
To treat, as dearest friend, a foe:
They never importune his grace,
Nor ever cringe to men in place:
Nor undertake a dirty job,
Nor draw the quill to write for Bob.
Fraught with invective, they ne'er go
To folks at Paternoster Row.
No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters,
No pickpockets, or poetasters,
Are known to honest quadrupeds;
No single brute his fellow leads.
Brutes never meet in bloody fray,
Nor cut each other's throats for pay.
Of beasts, it is confess'd, the ape
Comes nearest us in human shape;
Like man, he imitates each fashion,
And malice is his lurking passion:
But, both in malice and grimaces,
A courtier any ape surpasses.
Behold him, humbly cringing, wait
Upon the minister of state;
View him soon after to inferiors
Aping the conduct of superiors;
He promises with equal air,
And to perform takes equal care.
He in his turn finds imitators,
At court, the porters, lacqueys, waiters,
Their masters' manner still contract,
And footmen, lords and dukes can act.
Thus, at the court, both great and small
Behave alike, for all ape all.
John Carter: A Prisoner
Reading Practice Passage
We had gone perhaps ten miles when the ground began to rise very rapidly.
We were, as I was later to learn, nearing the edge of one of Mars'
long-dead seas, in the bottom of which my encounter with the Martians
had taken place. WCPM 44
In a short time we gained the foot of the mountains, and after traversing
a narrow gorge came to an open valley, at the far extremity of which
was a low table land upon which I beheld an enormous city. Toward this
we galloped, entering it by what appeared to be a ruined roadway leading
out from the city, but only to the edge of the table land, where it
ended abruptly in a flight of broad steps. WCPM 125
Upon closer observation I saw as we passed them that the buildings
were deserted, and while not greatly decayed had the appearance of not
having been tenanted for years, possibly for ages. Toward the center of
the city was a large plaza, and upon this and in the buildings immediately
surrounding it were camped some nine or ten hundred creatures of
the same breed as my captors, for such I now considered them despite
the suave manner in which I had been trapped. WCPM 209
With the exception of their ornaments all were unclothed. The women varied
in appearance but little from the men, except that their tusks were
much larger in proportion to their height, in some instances curving
nearly to their high-set ears. Their bodies were smaller and lighter in color,
and their fingers and toes bore the rudiments of nails, which were entirely
lacking among the males. The adult females ranged in height from
ten to twelve feet. WCPM 289
What was the state of the dwellings in the city, particularly the state of habitation?
A. The dwellings seem to have recent tenants.
B. The dwellings are inhabited and in pristine condition.
C. The city is slightly damaged with no apparent habitation.
John Carter: My Advent on Mars
Reading Practice Passage
I opened my eyes upon a strange and weird landscape. I knew that I was
on Mars; not once did I question either my sanity or my wakefulness. I
was not asleep, no need for pinching here; my inner consciousness told
me as plainly that I was upon Mars as your conscious mind tells you that
you are upon Earth. You do not question the fact; neither did I.
I found myself lying prone upon a bed of yellowish, moss-like vegetation
which stretched around me in all directions for interminable miles. I
seemed to be lying in a deep, circular basin, along the outer verge of
which I could distinguish the irregularities of low hills. WCPM 115
It was midday, the sun was shining full upon me and the heat of it was
rather intense upon my unclothed body, yet no greater than would have
been true under similar conditions on an Arizona desert. Here and there
were slight outcroppings of quartz-bearing rock which glistened in the
sunlight; and a little to my left, perhaps a hundred yards, appeared a
low, walled enclosure about four feet in height. No water, and no other
vegetation than the moss was in evidence, and as I was somewhat thirsty
I determined to do a little exploring. WCPM 212
Springing to my feet I received my first Martian surprise, for the effort,
which on Earth would have brought me standing upright, carried me into
the Martian air to the height of about three yards. I alighted softly
upon the ground, however, without appreciable shock or jar. Now commenced
a series of evolutions which even then seemed ludicrous in the
extreme. I found that I must learn to walk all over again, as the muscular
exertion which carried me easily and safely upon Earth played strange
antics with me upon Mars. WCPM 303
The terrain is similar to the Arizona Desert in what way?
A. The rocks are shimmering and covered with moss.
B.
The terrain is arid and hot with no deciduous flora.
C. The land looks like Arizona with cacti and large rock outcroppings.
Around the World in 80 Days: Fluency Drill / Reading Level 6.4
IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG SECURES A CURIOUS MEANS OF CONVEYANCE AT A FABULOUS PRICE Author: Jules Verne Chapter XI
The train had started punctually. Among the passengers were a number of officers, Government officials, and opium and indigo merchants, whose business called them to the eastern coast. Passepartout rode in the same carriage with his master, and a third passenger occupied a seat opposite to them.47WCPM This was Sir Francis Cromarty, one of Mr.Fogg's whist partners on the Mongolia, now on his way to join his corps at Benares. Sir Francis was a tall, fair man of fifty, who had greatly distinguished himself in the last Sepoy revolt. He made India his home, only paying brief visits to England at rare intervals; and was almost as familiar as a native with the customs, history, and character of India and its people. 123WCPM But Phileas Fogg, who was not travelling, but only describing a circumference, took no pains to inquire into these subjects; he was a solid body, traversing an orbit around the terrestrial globe, according to the laws of rational mechanics. He was at this moment calculating in his mind the number of hours spent since his departure from London, and, had it been in his nature to make a useless demonstration, would have rubbed his hands for satisfaction.201 Sir Francis Cromarty had observed the oddity of his travelling companion--although the only opportunity he had for studying him had been while he was dealing the cards, and between two rubbers—and questioned himself whether a human heart really beat beneath this coldexterior, and whether Phileas Fogg had any sense of the beauties of nature.258WCPM The brigadier-general was free to mentally confess that, of all the eccentric persons he had ever met, none was comparable to this product of the exact sciences.285 WCPM
Around the World in 80 Days: Fluency Drill / Reading Level 6.0
IN WHICH CERTAIN INCIDENTS ARE NARRATED WHICH ARE ONLY TO BE MET WITH ON AMERICAN RAILROADS Author: Jules Verne Chapter XXIX
Nothing could be more simple. Indeed, it was all so simple that Fix and Passepartout felt their hearts beating as if they would crack. They were listening for the whistle agreed upon, when suddenly savage cries resounded in the air, accompanied by reports which certainly did not issue from the car where the duelists were. The reports continued in front and the whole length of the train. Cries of terror proceeded
from the interior of the cars. 77 WCPM
Colonel Proctor and Mr. Fogg, revolvers in hand, hastily quitted their prison, and rushed forward where the noise was most clamorous. They then perceived that the train was attacked by a band of Sioux. 113 WCPM
This was not the first attempt of these daring Indians, for more than once they had waylaid trains on the road. A hundred of them had, according to their habit, jumped upon the steps without stopping the train, with the ease of a clown mounting a horse at full gallop. WCPM 165
The Sioux were armed with guns, from which came the reports, to which the passengers, who were almost all armed, responded by revolver-shots. WCPM 190
The Indians had first mounted the engine, and half stunned the engineer and stoker with blows from their muskets. A Sioux chief, wishing to stop the train, but not knowing how to work the regulator, had opened
wide instead of closing the steam-valve, and the locomotive was plunging forward with terrific velocity. WCPM 244
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: Fluency Drill / Reading Level 9.0
An Underwater Tour of the World By JULES VERNEA Runaway Reef CHAPTER 1
THE YEAR 1866 was marked by a bizarre development, an unexplained and downright inexplicable phenomenon that surely no one has forgotten. Without getting into those rumors that upset civilians
in the seaports and deranged the public mind even far inland, it must be said that professional seamen were especially alarmed. Traders, shipowners, captains of vessels, skippers, and master mariners from Europe and America, naval officers from every country, and at their heels the various national governments on these two continents, were all extremely disturbed by the business.92 WCPM
In essence, over a period of time several ships had encountered "an enormous thing" at sea, a long spindle-shaped object, sometimes giving off a phosphorescent glow, infinitely bigger and faster than any whale.121 WCPM
The relevant data on this apparition, as recorded in various logbooks, agreed pretty closely as to the structure of the object or creature in question, its unprecedented speed of movement, its startling
locomotive power, and the unique vitality with which it seemed to be gifted. If it was a cetacean, it exceeded in bulk any whale previously classified by science. No naturalist, neither Cuvier nor Lacépède, neither Professor Dumeril nor Professor de Quatrefages, would have accepted the existence of such a monster sight unseen-- specifically, unseen by their own scientific eyes. WCPM 213
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas:
Fluency Drill / Reading Level 9.0
An Underwater Tour of the World By JULES VERNE
CHAPTER 11 The Nautilus
CAPTAIN NEMO stood up. I followed him. Contrived at the rear of the dining room, a double door opened, and I entered a room whose dimensions equaled the one I had just left.
It was a library. Tall, black-rosewood bookcases, inlaid with copperwork, held on their wide shelves a large number of uniformly bound books. These furnishings followed the contours of the room, their lower parts leading to huge couches upholstered in maroon leather and curved for maximum comfort. Light, movable reading stands, which could be pushed away or pulled near as desired, allowed books to be positioned on them for easy study. In the center stood a huge table covered with pamphlets, among which some newspapers, long out of date, were visible. Electric light flooded this whole harmonious totality, falling from
four frosted half globes set in the scrollwork of the ceiling. I stared in genuine wonderment at this room so ingeniously laid out, and I couldn't believe my eyes. WCPM 161
"Captain Nemo," I told my host, who had just stretched out on a couch, "this is a library that would do credit to more than onecontinental palace, and I truly marvel to think it can go with you into the deepest seas." WCPM 206
"Where could one find greater silence or solitude, professor?" Captain Nemo replied. "Did your study at the museum afford you such a perfect retreat?"
"No, sir, and I might add that it's quite a humble one next to yours. You own 6,000 or 7,000 volumes here . . ." WCPM 257
"12,000, Professor Aronnax. They're my sole remaining ties with dry land. But I was done with the shore the day my Nautilus submerged for the first time under the waters. That day I purchased my last volumes, my last pamphlets, my last newspapers, and ever since I've chosen to believe that humanity no longer thinks or writes. In any event, professor, these books are at your disposal, and you may use them freely." WCPM 333
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas:
Fluency Drill / Reading Level 12.0
An Underwater Tour of the World By JULES VERNE
CHAPTER 9 A Lost Continent/ATLANTIS
What lightning flashed through my mind! Atlantis, that ancient land of Meropis mentioned by the historian Theopompus; Plato's Atlantis; the continent whose very existence has been denied by such philosophers
and scientists as Origen, Porphyry, Iamblichus, d'Anville, Malte-Brun, and Humboldt, who entered its disappearance in the ledger of myths and folk tales; the country whose reality has nevertheless been accepted by such other thinkers as Posidonius, Pliny, Ammianus Marcellinus, Tertullian, Engel, Scherer, Tournefort, Buffon, and d'Avezac; I had this land right under my eyes, furnishing its own unimpeachable evidence of the catastrophe that had overtaken it! So this was the submerged region that had existed outside Europe, Asia, and Libya, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, home of those powerful Atlantean people against whom ancient Greece had waged its earliest wars! WCPM 120
The writer whose narratives record the lofty deeds of those heroic times is Plato himself. His dialogues Timaeus and Critias were drafted with the poet and legislator Solon as their inspiration, as it were. WCPM 166
One day Solon was conversing with some elderly wise men in the Egyptian capital of Sais, a town already 8,000 years of age, as documented by the annals engraved on the sacred walls of its temples. One of these elders related the history of another town 1,000 years older still. This original city of Athens, ninety centuries old, had been invaded and partly destroyed by the Atlanteans. These Atlanteans, he said, resided on an immense continent greater than Africa and Asia combined, taking in an area that lay between latitude 12 degrees and 40 degrees north. Their dominion extended even to Egypt. They tried to enforce their rule as far as Greece, but they had to retreat before the indomitable resistance of the Hellenic people. Centuries passed. A cataclysm occurred--floods, earthquakes. A single night and day were enough to obliterate this Atlantis, whose highest peaks (Madeira, the Azores, the Canaries, the Cape Verde Islands) still emerge above the waves. WCPM 323
A Journey into the Interior of the Earth:
Fluency Drill / Reading Level 6.0
Chapter 27 Lost in the Bowels of the Earth by Jules Verne
To describe my despair would be impossible. No words could tell it. Idescribe my despair would be impossible. No words could tell it. Iwas buried alive, with the prospect before me of dying of hunger and
thirst. Mechanically I swept the ground with my hands. How dry and hard the rock seemed to me! But how had I left the course of the stream? For it was a terrible fact that it no longer ran at my side. Then I understood the reason of that fearful, silence, when for the last time I listened to hear if any sound from my companions could reach my ears. At the moment when I left the right road I had not noticed the absence of the stream. It is evident that at that moment a deviation had presented itself before me, whilst the Hansbach, following the caprice of another incline, had gone with my companions away into unknown depths. WCPM 146
How was I to return? There was not a trace of their footsteps or of my own, for the foot left no mark upon the granite floor. I racked my brain for a solution of this impracticable problem. One word described my position. Lost! Lost at an immeasurable depth! Thirty leagues of rock seemed to weigh upon my shoulders with a dreadful pressure. I felt crushed. I tried to carry back my ideas to things on the surface of the earth. I could scarcely succeed. Hamburg, the house in the Königstrasse, my poor Gräuben, all that busy world underneath which I was wandering about, was passing in rapid confusion before my terrified memory. I could revive with vivid reality all the incidents of our voyage, Iceland, M. Fridrikssen, Snæfell. I said to myself that if, in such a position as I was now in, I was fool enough to cling to one glimpse of hope, it would be madness, and that the best thing I could do was to despair. WCPM 318
George Washington Carver
Fluency Drill / Reading Level 6.0
George Washington Carver was an American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor. He was born into slavery during the America Civil wart in Missouri a year before the end of the war. CWPM 31
When George Washington Carver was only a week old, George, a sister, and his mother were kidnapped by night raiders from Arkansas.
George's brother, James, was rushed to safety from the kidnappers. The kidnappers sold the slaves in Kentucky. Moses Carver hired John Bentley to find them, but he located only the infant George. Moses negotiated with the raiders to gain the boy's return. and rewarded Bentley. CWPM 99
After slavery was abolished, Moses Carver and his wife Susan raised George and his older brother James as their own children. They encouraged George to continue his love of learning and reading, and his "Auntie Susan" taught him the basics of reading and writing that he turned into a lifelong passion of learning. CWPM 147
African American people were not allowed to go to white only public schools in Diamond Grove. The nearest segregated school for African American children was 10 miles away in Neosho, George decided to go there to continue his education. When he reached the town, he found the school closed for the night. He slept in a nearby barn. By his own account, the next morning he met a kind woman, Mariah Watkins, from whom he wished to rent a room. When he identified himself as "Carver's George," as he had done his whole life, she replied that from now on his name was "George Carver". George liked this lady very much, and her words, "You must learn all you can, then go back out into the world and give your learning back to the people", made a great impression on him. CWPM 286
Firework-Maker's Daughter 
[Paperback]
(Puffin Modern Classics)
[Paperback]
[Paperback]
(The Earthsea Cycle, Book 1) [Paperback]
[Mass Market Paperback]
e, by Roald Dahl
(A Series of Unfortunate Events #1)