Teachers play an important role in helping students who stutter feel more confident and understood in class. By using strategies to make changes to your speech, behaviour, and classroom, you can help these students.
Speech and behaviour strategies
- Create a calm environment and model slower speech.
- Give the student enough time to finish talking.
- Show the student you are listening by repeating or rephrasing their words.
- Encourage everyone in the class to take turns speaking.
- Instead of giving a student who stutters advice or reacting negatively when they speak, accept their speech with warmth and patience. This helps them feel understood.
- Build the student’s confidence by focusing on their strengths, encouraging their interests, and following their lead to ease pressure around speaking.
Learn more about making changes in your speech and behaviour to help you
support a child who stutters.
Classroom strategies
Make accommodations
A student who stutters might be worried or scared to do presentations, oral reports, read out loud, or answer questions.
Make a plan with the student and their family to find what they are comfortable doing. For example:
- Let the student record oral presentations at home and play them in class.
- Wait for them to volunteer to answer questions or read aloud. When they do volunteer to speak, let them speak right away. The longer they have to wait to talk, the more anxious they may become.
- Give the student opportunities to read out loud or answer questions with you alone or in a small group.
- Give the student time to practise before reading out loud or answering questions.
Change what is expected when speech is bumpy
Some days speech is smooth and other days it’s bumpy. A student might stutter more when they are tired, sick, or stressed.
When a student has a bumpy day, lower the amount they need to speak in class. Think about asking fewer questions, or ask questions that can be answered with a few words.
On smooth days, give them more chances to talk.
Be clear about the daily schedule
When students know what will happen in the day and what they need to do, it helps them feel secure. This can ease anxiety and support smooth talking.
A visual schedule or regular routines can offer comfort and predictability.
Keep a reasonable pace
Try to slow the pace of the classroom down. Do not rush students. Time pressures makes it harder to talk smoothly.
Deal with teasing
If a student is being teased for stuttering, stop it right away and address it.
Talk to the student privately and ask how you can help. If they’re okay with it, you can lead a lesson about how everyone is different and that’s okay.
Focus on being kind, respectful, and listening to each other. You can also teach empathy by helping everyone in your class imagine how others feel. Encouraging everyone to treat classmates the way they’d want to be treated. You can also consult your school’s antibullying policy for more guidance.
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