About this activity
A ten-part passage read with fluency techniques: the old lighthouse stood at the edge of the cliff; every night its light turned slowly across the dark water; one winter the light went out during a heavy storm; a girl named Nora climbed the stairs with a lantern. The last three cards are the work — read the whole passage again watching your rate, then once more with a recording.
How to use it in a session
Read the first pass together. Reading aloud is more fluent than speaking for most people who stutter, which makes it a good place to establish a technique before moving to conversation. The recording card is the most useful — a student who listens back for smooth starts is doing their own analysis, and that is worth more than any feedback you give. Ten minutes covers a full pass with the recording.
What to listen for
Listen for rate creeping up across the passage. Reading gets faster as the text becomes familiar, and the technique goes first. Watch the sentence starts specifically, since easy onset applies at the beginning of an utterance and every sentence in this passage is a fresh opportunity to use it or skip it.
Carrying it home
Reading one page aloud each night is a realistic and low-pressure home task. Recording it occasionally gives the student something to compare against, which is more motivating than being told they improved.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Second through eighth, for students with a fluency technique to apply.
- Do I need an account?
- No, the whole passage plays free with no login.
- Reading is easier than talking. Does practising it help?
- It helps establish a technique, which is genuinely easier under reduced demand. It is a stage rather than an endpoint — the passage is a place to build the habit before conversation tests it.