Classroom Activities For Children With Stuttering

Stuttering, a speech disorder that causes disruptions and repetitive sounds in a person's speech patterns, typically starts between the ages of two and five, according to the National Stuttering Association. As such, early intervention is the key to help rehabilitate stutterers and help them feel more comfortable with normal speech patterns. If you have a child in your class who stutters, take the time to educate other children about stuttering and offer them relaxed, enjoyable activities to practice speech without pressure.

Stuttering Discussion

Talk to the student ahead of time to better understand how he would like his speech disorder to be approached. It is important that you spend time educating the other children in the class about stuttering to avoid bullying or misunderstandings, which could further ostracize the stutterer. Reading a book, such as "Sometimes I Just Stutter" by Eelco de Geus, and "Jeremy and the Hippo" by Gail Wilson Lew, brings the issue down to a child's level so they better understand why it happens and how they should react.

Joke Telling

Practicing common words helps a stutterer feel more confident in common speech patterns. Since children usually love jokes, having a joke-telling contest in your classroom makes learning speech more enjoyable and even funny. Ask that all children come to class with a joke, either made-up or from a book. Spend extra time working with the stutterer to practice the words of his joke. When he receives positive feedback, such as laughing, he will begin to feel more confident.

Interview Questions

Place the children into pairs and ask that one become a famous person while the other is the interviewer. Give the interviewer time to make up questions while the other child gets into character. This teaches all children, not just the stutterer, the power of preparation and practice in forming the right ideas before talking and feeling comfortable talking to others. Have the children interview each other and write down the answers, which they can later present to the rest of the class.

Wordless Storybook

By choosing a few picture books without words, you help a child with a stutter learn to make up ideas on the spot and use his words to tell a story. Making up stories privately or with the rest of the class exercises a stutterer's ability to think, speak and pause effectively. To start, it is helpful to give him a storybook and have him write his own story, which he then reads. As he becomes more comfortable, it is possible that he will be able to look at pictures and create stories instantly with and without stuttering.