Oral reading fluency practice passages

After the rain, Mina went to the small garden behind her building. Water shone on the leaves, and the path was soft under her shoes. She had planned to pick tomatoes, but the fruit was still green. Instead, she decided to tidy the bed before the next shower arrived.

Near the fence, she found a wooden plant label lying in the mud. Its writing had almost disappeared. Mina wiped it with her sleeve, but she could only make out the first letter. She put it beside the empty flowerpot and checked the other labels. Two more were loose.

Her neighbor, Sam, came through the gate carrying a small bag. Inside were a pencil, some string, and three clean pieces of wood. They made new labels together. Mina wrote the plant names while Sam tied each label to a short stick. They left enough room around the stems to reach the soil without stepping on the plants.

By the time they finished, the clouds had begun to clear. Mina placed the old labels on a shelf to dry. Sam brushed the dirt from his hands and looked at their work. There were no ripe tomatoes to take home that day, but the garden was ready for another visit. Mina closed the gate carefully and tucked the pencil into her pocket.

On Saturday evening, Leo carried a notebook and a folded star map to the hill near his home. His sister, Nora, brought a blanket and a small lamp. They wanted to draw what they could see above the town, but the sky was still too bright when they arrived.

They spread the blanket on a dry patch of grass and opened the map. Nora held down one corner while Leo placed a stone on the other. A breeze lifted the paper between their hands. They laughed, moved closer together, and waited while the lights below them came on.

After a while, Leo noticed a bright point above the trees. He drew a dot in his notebook and marked where the trees stood beneath it. Nora found two more points farther to the left. Neither was sure how the shapes on the map matched the view, so they kept their first drawing simple.

A thin cloud crossed the sky and hid one of the dots. Leo left its place on the page rather than rubbing it out. When the cloud passed, the light appeared again. Before going home, they added the date and a sketch of the hill. They agreed to bring the notebook on their next visit and compare the two drawings.