Fluent Speech
Confident Life.

I was eight years old when it happened. Our third-grade teacher, Mrs. Reynolds, had a habit of making each student read a passage aloud before all the class from our English lesson workbook. It was supposed to help with fluency and confidence, but for me, it was a nightmare.

I had a STUTTER.

When I was nervous the words caught in my throat like pebbles in a stream. That day, it was my turn to read aloud. I held the book in my trembling hands and tried to focus on the words.

“The c…c…c…” I was trying to say “cat” but I couldn’t finish the word. My tongue felt thick. I could hear sniggers from the back of the room. The sniggers turned into full-blown, red-faced, pointing-fingers laughter. My cheeks burned. My throat clenched. I looked up from the book towards Mrs. Reynolds, hoping she would silence the class. To my horror, she was struggling to hide the fact she was laughing too.

That night, I cried into my pillow, vowing it would never happen to me again.

It did, of course, and many, many more times after that.
In fact, I was a full-grown adult when one day, a flash of inspiration led me to a very simple technique that I hoped would rescue me on the occasions I began to stutter. The first time I tried it, it worked. And the second. And the third.

I now call this technique The Stuttering Solution.