About this activity
Twelve exercises building from breathing to speech: breathe in through your nose for four counts, hold for two, out through your mouth for six; tense your shoulders hard for five seconds then let go; tense your jaw, then let it hang loose; yawn wide then sigh out on ahhh; breathe in, then say your name on the way out with no push; take three slow breaths before you speak in a hard situation.
How to use it in a session
Do the tense-and-release exercises before the breathing ones. Most students cannot feel tension until they have deliberately created and dropped it, and the contrast is what makes relaxation something they can produce rather than a word. The last two cards are the point — three breaths before a hard moment, practised at a desk, is a portable tool and the rest is preparation. Ten minutes covers the sequence.
What to listen for
Watch where the student holds tension. The card asking whether it is jaw, throat or chest usually produces an answer the student has never articulated before, and knowing their own location makes the release targeted rather than general. Notice whether the breathing raises the shoulders, which means it is happening high in the chest and is not the diaphragmatic pattern intended.
Carrying it home
Three slow breaths before a hard moment is the whole home programme. It needs no equipment, no time and no privacy, which is why it is the one that actually gets used.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Second through eighth, alongside fluency technique work.
- Do I need an account?
- No, all twelve exercises are free to use here.
- Does relaxation reduce stuttering?
- It reduces the physical tension that accompanies it, which makes techniques easier to apply. It is a support for the rest of the work rather than something that changes fluency on its own.