Am I Reading Aloud More Fluently or Am I Just Tricking My Brain?
Reading aloud as a person who stutters is the absolute worst
I’ll save you the horror stories of having to read aloud during my schooling for another blog. I will say however that reading aloud as a person who stutters is one of the worst levels of stuttering for me. On a scale of pretty fluent to every word makes me physically out of breath, I’d put it towards the latter. From a numerical standpoint, it’d be a 4/5 severity.
But lately, I’ve been pretty fluent when it comes to reading aloud.
I’ve always loved to read. But as soon as I’d read out loud for the sake of just wanting to hear the narrative, I’d stumble and I’d stammer. Words were as chopped up as minced garlic. I would finish a paragraph physically exhausted and disappointed.
I could never enjoy it.
And the most embarrassing part is that I would have to go back and read it over again.
You concentrate so much on trying to get through every word, trying not to stutter, that you don’t know what you read.
You see the hard part about reading is that it is already written. If you speak to someone, you have the opportunity to word switch, to add ums or likes, to start over, omit entire words to fill other ones. Your response is in constant editing mode to make your final statement as fluid as possible (if you want to). But with reading aloud, you don’t have that option. You have no other choice but the words on the page. Either you say it or you figure out how to say it.
So when you know you can’t change the script because it is not your own, it is scary. You have no control.
When I was 20 and wanting to get serious about accepting my stutter, one of the books I read said to read aloud. That shook me to my core.
A lot of accepting your stutter is doing things that make you uncomfortable and I should’ve known that this would be one of them.
But still, I held it off for the longest time.
Until now.
I have a news subscription (Morning Brew, non spon, but you should check it out) that I read every day (or try to). It’s super short filled with even shorter paragraphs (as a PWS, we love shorter paragraphs, less intimidating). Overall, it is a non-threatening approach to this “exercise.” And in comparison to a few years ago, I am actually way more fluent in these articles than I thought I was. And a part of me is asking myself if I am actually improving my overall mental state with my stutter or am I just tricking myself.
Many actors who use to stutter became more fluent because of acting
To oversimplify, when you act, you are a different character which therefore if that character is not a stutterer then you are not a stutterer while in character.
I’ve tried this mind>body theory out many many times. That will be for another blog. But in relation to this, a part of me is delivering a certain cadence when I read these articles aloud, dare I say almost “newscaster,” which is not my natural voice. But I have to admit, it feels great to not only get through several paragraphs but to actually digest what I’m reading while I’m reading it.
While I’m trying to snap out of being an anchorwoman, I really do think I am improving because of my journey. And if that is the case then this is a huge door I’m walking through.
The next would be reading to other people.
