How to Read Aloud Well
Let me begin by saying that, aside from controlled breath, this is one of the most fundamentally important lessons in public speaking that I can give to you. In fact, it’s so key that for a long time, I didn’t even mention it on social media posts because I didn’t want to give away the “secret ingredient”.
But the truth is that many (many!) people have said the following words to me, and I need to dispel this myth, because it is creating a lot of lazy speaking habits: “I am much better working with point form notes than I am reading from a script.”
And dear readers, please know that this is coming from a place of love and a desire to see you succeed, but my answer is unequivocally: “No, you’re not.”
The reason? You haven’t learned how to read aloud well.
And why would you? I learned the art of text mapping and reading 3-7 words ahead of what I was speaking (those two people will get more attention later on down this post) in theatre school. It’s a highly specialized skill set, but damn if it isn’t the key to being able to say everything you want to say, exactly how you want to say it, while still maintaining connection with your audience.
It is possible to read from a script and not sound like a robot. Let’s dive in.
Marking Up Your Text, or Text Mapping
The first thing to do, once you’ve written your speech (and for the purposes of this post, anything written will be referred to as your “speech”) is print it out and begin to mark up your text. I recommend doing this by hand, and in a pencil (so that you can make changes, since once you read something out loud, you’ll note nuance and differences than how it sounded in your head). Writing by hand also helps you retain information. It’s science.
We’ll start marking your text with breath bars. A breath bar looks like this “/”, and is placed in almost every punctuation mark. Here is an example from a Mindy Kaling speech that I often use to teach with:
I graduated in 2001 from Dartmouth College,/ an academic institution located in lawless rural New Hampshire,/ where when you arrive,/ you are given a flask of moonshine and a box of fireworks,/ and you are told simply to,/ quote,/ “Go to town”/—except there is no town,/ there is only a forest and a row of frat houses that smell like urine./
What you’re doing here, is finding the natural place to take a breath. You’re also managing your pacing by ensuring you take small pauses, AND you’re giving yourself enough breath so that the ends of your sentences can be read with the same amount of power as the beginnings. The ends of our sentences are often the most important parts - the summary of what’s come before - and if you’ve not had a chance to take a full or a top up breath, you’re fighting with what’s left in your lungs to get to the end.
As an added bonus, because you’re deciding in advance when to take a breath, you’re controlling your breathing, which can help regulate your adrenaline and cortisol levels (the stress hormones). Cool, right?
A quick word about full breaths and top up breaths - full breaths are often used at periods and for dramatic pause, a top up breath is a quick breath that allows you to top up your air supply so that you can continue to speak with power.
Once the breath bars have been sorted out, you can begin to mark your text with other symbols - ↑ (upwards inflection) to remind yourself that you’re asking a question or using a list; ↓ (downwards inflection) to remind yourself that you’re coming to a full stop with a downwards inflection, indicating a “case closed” or “this is the end of the sentence” signal to the audience; — (dash) over the top of important words that you want to emphasize; ☆ (star) to indicate a key point.
The reasons for the extra symbols, and why we call this “text mapping” become apparent as we begin to practise:
Reading 3-7 Words (or more) Ahead of Speaking
You’ve created the road map, and now it’s time to drive. Reading ahead of what you’re speaking, essentially, creates a buffer from which you can look up and speak out to an audience. It requires practise to get good at it, but once you become good at it (and stay in practise), your presentations are going to change for the better.
The symbols along the way remind you of how you want to be behaving, and what you are trying to communicate, as you’re taking in the next small chunk of words and delivery.
Have you ever been reading a story aloud to a child, and shouted “Watch out Harry!” and then see the words “whispered Hermione”? If you’d placed the upwards inflection (↑), indicating a question, you’d know how to deliver the 3-7 words that were temporarily stored in your brain. Same goes for lists - the ↑ lets people know you’re still listing items until you use a ↓ on the last one. This helps your audience understand your intent, removing a barrier to communication - and frankly, that is all public speaking training is. Removing barriers to communication.
Eye Contact
When you have a small sentence, or the latter half of a sentence held in your brain so that you can look up and connect with your audience, you are establishing another key piece to communication: eye contact. One of the ways that communication is breaking down is that we are used to staring at our phones or our computers, and not actively taking in how the other person is dealing with what we’ve communicated.
Eye contact allows you to gauge where your audience is at, and it allows them to be seen - it is an exchange, and that exchange facilitates better understanding. Subtle information is transferred through eye contact, and it deepens your experience as a speaker to connect with the people you’re delivering information to. In fact it’s the difference between delivering information and true communication (which is an exchange).
So. Now that my secret’s out, I know that some of you will still hold on to your belief that walking around on the stage with your microphone, riffing on point form notes, is preferable than reading a speech..
To that, I say this: memorize your speech. This is harder, but hey, we don’t mind difficulty if it means we’re going to do an amazing job, right? Read your speech aloud (after you’ve marked it up, because those markings also help establish memory - visual and muscle) several times per day, and especially at night before you go to bed. If you can’t memorize the whole thing, memorize key chunks so that it appears as though you are “speaking from the heart”, but instead you are “speaking from the well crafted speech that you carefully wrote that has everything you need to say in it”. (Assuming your writing skills are adequate.)
The only people who are great at speaking unscripted are Barack Obama and Stand Up Comedians, and quite frankly, you’d be surprised at how much of their “unscripted” speech has actually been written out in advance and memorized. If you are Obama or great at Stand Up, you’re good. Go forth and dazzle.
But if you’re like the rest of us, make sure you carve time into your schedule to write out your speech, to ensure you say everything that needs to be said, and give ample time for memorization. If you put in the time, you’ll see results, and you’ll start to understand how much more you can get out of your presentation experiences.
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Did you find this useful? Let me know in the comments, or shoot me an email at megan@ubuskills.com. Happy to answer any further questions you may have!
Want to work with me? Let’s do it! I can help you really get into the above work, and more - check out my coaching packages.
