To have told DD not to read out loud in class if she doesn’t want to?

[AberforthDumbledoresGoat]

DD has a lisp. It has greatly improved as she’s gotten older but it is still very noticeable and she’s quite young still (primary). She struggles with ‘th’ and ‘f’ and can be quite self conscious about it, particularly around her classmates.

Her teacher has started having the class read out loud whichever book they are reading that week. Each child speaks until she says ‘stop.’

Recently DD was incredibly upset when I met her at the gates (she saw me and burst into tears and was quite hysterical). Her classmates had laughed at her in class and the teacher had ignored it other than to ask for quiet and the bullying had continued all day. I gently raised it with the school and asked that she not be asked to speak as, in my eyes, embarrassing her in front of 20 other children is not going to help her lisp and I just don’t think you do that to a young child. The teacher said no.

So, I told DD she was to refuse to read out loud if she doesn’t want to. She did exactly that - cue exasperated teacher at the gates asking to speak to me. The teacher absolutely refused to understand that embarrassing DD in front of her classmates was counterproductive and she ended up saying it was causing her problems as other children were now refusing to read out loud.

I did lose my temper slightly and pointed out if she had taken action, and addressed the classmates laughing at DD in class over her lisp, that this wouldn’t have been an issue. I also said I didn’t care if other children were disrupting the class by refusing to read.

WIBU to have told her to refuse to read given how upset she was?

Absolutely this. IME speech impediments are made much worse by stress and if the teacher isn’t prepared to address the bullying then DD shouldn’t be made to read in front of the class. There are different ways to address this and if the speech impediment qualifies as a disability under the Equality Act then the school are in breach of the law unless they make the effort to find reasonable adjustment.

I think you did the right thing, OP. I usually have a pass system with my students, so today my year 7s read a paragraph each, but if they didn't want to then they just said 'pass'. Lots of colds going around, so there were a few extra passes today from kids who've lost their voices.

Even in situations when I expect to be able to cold call kids and get answers I would have a note to avoid that for a kid with a lisp and let them volunteer. The teacher is being unreasonable.

Your poor daughter.

you tried to do things the proper way and had no choice but to tell her to refuse. Poor girl. This will make things worse not better:

This should be a matter of teachers being informed of the issue. Did you ask for this to be raised so that she doesn't have to read aloud? Im sure you will have and unfortunately it has been withheld as confidential information to be discussed or said teacher has the list of needs for all of her classes and didn't realise.

The students I've taught with stammers have at a later stage been encouraged to read aloud and their peers aware and have never made fun in class, rather encouraged them. Of course it may be different outside the lesson and disgusting if so.

This is an awful thing to happen but best to be dealt with as a school matter and not attack an individual teacher. Asking for a meeting rather than a personal rage will give more insights into the reasons. Xx

I think you would've sent a far better message to your DD if you'd said how silly and mean the other children were being, that practicing speaking will help lisp over time, and that children will find anything they can to make fun of and if it wasn't the lisp it'd be speed or fumbling on a word.
Instead you've sent her the message that the lisp is so embarrassing she should avoid speaking.

I have a physical disability. The bullying in primary school went from teasing to physical abuse because it went unchecked. Kids this age are not being silly and mean. It’s bullying and it needs to be nipped in the bud before it progresses to something much more damaging. No one is telling DD to avoid speaking. What they are saying is that she shouldn’t be forced to do it if she’s not comfortable, because in the end that is what will damage her.

OP talked to the teacher and she wasn’t willing to cooperate. She’s being stonewalled by the school. And from what she says her DD was being made fun of in class and the teacher did nothing to shut it down. In these circumstances I wouldn’t trust the school to deal with it - would you. ?

Sorry I should have read all of your posts. Well done for securing her support. Encourage her to keep working because speech therapy has good outcomes.

yes she

Not read the full thread but I saw on TV news tonight an initiative where children are reading to a care dog in a library. Do you have pets @AberforthDumbledoresGoat ? Could your DD read to your pet? The consensus was that children didn't get so nervous when reading to an animal

Let’s hope not!

Are you actually a teacher and are you actually that you wouldn’t make an easy accommodation for a child’s speech impediment? Is that right?

OP's daughter reads to her daddy, who is probably even better than a pet.

Thanks all who commented last night and offered words of advice and support - I really appreciate it! And I’m so sorry so many of you suffered similar bullying, or your children have.

To those of you who still think my child lacks resilience… She’s 9. The only resilience she needs is to be able to say ‘no’ when she is uncomfortable. And no one, absolutely no one, should be forced to sit in a room with people laughing at them and calling them names.

I’ll keep fighting her corner with the school and chasing for a meeting with the governors.

I completely disagree. Putting a child on the spot creates anxiety. When reading, a child has several different skills to focus on - intonation, punctuation, pronunciation, unfamiliar words etc. They’re also very conscious of how they compare to others. Throw in a speech difficulty and it becomes a huge deal.

Its not about saying the child never has to speak in front of others, but making sure the challenge is manageable and relaxed as possible.

When teaching, the focus should be on the skill you want to develop. So, if the focus is on making a child feel more confident about speaking in front of others, you need to isolate that skill and give them a task where that is all they need to focus on. So giving them time to practice what they’re going to say or ask them to share something they are proud of, or know a lot about is a more appropriate way to build confidence with speaking in front of others.

I was taught public speaking by presenting something I was interested in - speech impediment notwithstanding. I also read in class, ditto. By secondary school my pronunciation was much improved, though the fact of it had put me in the B stream at primary because I was deemed a non-reader because of mispronunciation - my mother did her best to stop this but she was w/c with little clout in a school at that time. Reading aloud was one of the ways in which I was made to practice speaking correctly - it worked and I felt no trauma, and I am a shy type who dislikes public speaking and reading in public, but I do it (and amd told I do it well - am dram).
Anxiety is something one has to learn to deal with.

Are you a teacher? I bloody well hope not.

It's great that this approach worked for you - but it wouldn't work for everyone. It didn't destroy you, it made you stronger - but you do not represent everyone with a speech problem. We are not all the same.

Gosh, you’re pushing this hard. Reading and speaking are not the same skill. Reading aloud in front of her whole class is not necessary to develop this child’s speech and ability to speak in public.

This child doesn’t want to read out loud, it’s making her anxious. My classroom is a place where reading in front of the class is encouraged but not forced. Children who don’t read for an audience, read with me and therefore are still reading aloud - they just don’t need to do it in front of their peers.

It is possible to help her grow her confidence in different ways, because at 9 she is a child in primary school and doesn’t need to be made to feel embarrassed and self conscious. Learning should be an enjoyable and rewarding experience where possible. I am very much for ensuring children learn some resilience, but I don’t think it needs to be done through humiliation.

Teacher here, and I know reading aloud and public speaking are different. But clear diction and good phonic knowledge are needed for both, as well as the knowledge rich curriculum needed to make the words comprehensible.
You can probably guess I support explicit teaching and, as part of that, teacher-choice of who answers questions, reads aloud etc. because that's one way to ensure everyone in the class understands what has been taught.
I don't think we read aloud in primary school - but it's long ago. Had to read out lists of words the the headmaster to move from one level of reader to another, though.
My speech impediment was no longer noticeable by the time I was fifteen - and French phonics had done wonders for my spelling, too.
Yes, I am pushing it, I suppose. I think children with problems of confidence are helped by attempting things, preferably in small steps - not to fail but to succeed (productive failure is a load of nonsense, of course). But OP seems to have caused a major problem with her DD's teacher by telling her DD to refuse to read i.e. to not do what the teacher has asked, and this has caused a discipline problem in the class, that OP seems unaware will impact negatively on her DD and her education. Needs sorting somehow. Glad I am not the teacher (though I would have been more helpful that the one OP talks about!).

Do you teach primary? I’m anything but a soft teacher, but OPs child has difficulty with speech and is embarrassed. Why, why, why would I make her feel embarrassed and upset when I don’t bloody need to? OPs mother tried to explain to the teacher and the teacher hasn’t helped. The teacher has created the defiance by allowing the child to be humiliated and picked, and ultimately feel unsafe in the classroom. The other kids are making fun of her. Why is that not being dealt with? I would come down hard on kids that made fun of another child for a difference and I would never make a child perform in front of a group of kids that I thought were going to torment them about it after.

If my goal is for OPs child to speak in front of an audience, she might need more steps in place than another child because she has a different need. I would work with her to build her up and make her feel good about herself and her abilities before I made her do something that she found, not just challenging, but humiliating. If she had a limb difference I wouldn’t expect her to climb up the monkey bars as quickly as another child, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t support her to achieve as best as she could.

There is absolutely no need for the child to be reading out loud in front of the class. If you’re adamant that this is something she needs to practice, you can find the time to make her read out loud with just you listening.

If I’m explicitly teaching, I need to know what skills I’m focusing on. If I’m teaching reading for comprehension, no one needs to read out loud. I can tell they’ve comprehended what they have read by the response they give to the text. I can ascertain that without putting them on the spot in front of their peers.

If I want them to practice decoding and they can’t do that by age 9, usually I’ll have them read one to one with myself or support staff. It doesn’t bring any value to anyone in the class to sit and listen to someone painstakingly pick their way through a text. It doesn’t make the reader who is struggling feel good. It doesn’t bring any interest or enthusiasm to the lesson.

Sometimes I do read aloud with them as a whole class to practice skills of speed, intonation, articulation and emphasis. I usually do this by modelling reading a few lines, have them echo them back to me and continue for a couple of paragraph. They then take the text, and work on it in pairs to unpick the next few paragraphs themselves and then ‘perform’ their reading. Some children will stand up with flourish, and drama, others might hide behind a peer, but they are building confidence more than they would if just put on the spot.

I’ve spent far more time engaging with this than I really should have, but I just can’t get over a teacher in a classroom in 2025 being so adamant that a child should go through something they find distressing to perform an unnecessary task.

100%, @Goatinthegarden .

I'm bemused by all these people saying that OP's DD should absolutely be reading aloud in front of the class. I've been trying to think of when I ever did this in all my years as a primary teacher and can't think of a time. We did reading aloud but I would ask for those who wanted to read, wrote their names down, I started and then they all got their turn. I knew my pupils and those who I knew were less confident readers got a turn with a passage that perhaps wasn't as tricky or a bit shorter but they still got the chance to read aloud.

The difference being, I never forced anyone. There are other ways of developing performance confidence and other ways to check a child is reading with intonation etc.

Expecting every child to be able to learn to stand in front of a group and speak aloud isn't realistic. You're always going to get children who are more shy or less confident for whatever reason. Some will take time to develop these skills and forcing them to do something like this at the age of 9 is ridiculous. They have years to work on it!

OP, I hope you get it sorted with the school. I think the teacher was wrong and could have handled this situation so differently.

@Goatinthegarden I taught secondary, but have some primary experience. As I said, I woud not have reacted to OP as her DD's teacher did.

No one has stopped to consider that the teacher may have been a bit stressed after dealing with day after day parental issues. She’s human after all and isn’t not an easy job .

It's not but she should have strategies in place for dealing with the sorts of reactions the ops daughter experienced from the other children. Letting that situation escalate can't be excused by being stressed.

Read the op?