Cynthia over at Welcome to 2nd Grade Pad is hosting a terrific Linky Party.  What a great idea to have teachers share their favorite freebies, especially at the beginning of a new school year.  Check out my favorite freebie below and then head over to Cynthia's blog to check out other great freebies.  Even better, link up and share your favorite freebie.

My favorite freebie is called Walking Punctuation.   It is my favorite because it is so easy to use and my students LOVE it.  As an intensive reading teacher over the last four years, any activity that helps my students improve their fluency is a winner and this activity does just that.

This particular activity is not my original idea.  Last year, our principal allowed anyone who wanted to spend a day observing other teachers at our school.  She scheduled each person's day so that he/she observed teachers from whom they could get new ideas relative to their own classrooms.  One of the teachers I observed was Kim Murphy.  I was really excited to visit her class because as the 3rd grade intensive reading teacher,  she had the majority of my students from the previous year.  While there, I had the opportunity to observe 2 outstanding reading strategies.  One of them was called "Bus Stop".  (I will be posting about this idea at a later date.)  The other one was "Walking Punctuation."  I was so impressed with this one that when I started my blog and TPT store this summer, I asked her permission to create a freebie to share the idea with other teachers. She graciously agreed so I created "Walking Punctuation".

This activity can be used with any fluency passage you are using in your classroom.  First, you read the passage with students (more than once if necessary.)  Then, students reread the passage independently.  The difference is they reread while walking around the room.  Each time they come to a period, they stop walking.  When they come to a comma, they rock back and forth on their feet.  For question marks, they stop and raise their hand.  Finally, when they come to an exclamation mark, students stop and jump up and down in place.  Mrs. Murphy has the students read aloud quietly so that she is able to move around and listen to what they are reading.  When a student is finished, he/she sits on the floor wherever he/she finishes and then rereads silently until everyone is done.  I was so amazed that I went back to my classroom and immediately taught it to my students.

If you would like a copy of Walking Punctuation, click on the image below to download it from my TPT store.