I've had to learn how to read things out in AA: whether scripts or other readings.
Some things I've learned:
- Read the text in advance, if possible
- Look up words I do not understand fully
- Read out loud (or mentally read through if reading out loud is not possible)
- Spot where stumbling happens and eliminate it
- Keep practising until there is no further stumbling
- It's almost impossible to read too slowly or too clearly
- It's not a race, and there's no timer or finish line
- Almost everyone reads way too fast and way too indistinctly
- Almost everyone reads with too little comprehension and feeling
- Almost no one reads with too much
- Risk being slightly mannered if it gets the message across
- Imagine the words are one's own and put them across as though they are one's own
- Imagine one really wants to make the points made
- Imagine one really wants to convince or persuade (if reading out the Big Book)
- Imagine one really wants to paint a picture (if reading out a story)
- Imagine one really wants to communicate and be heartily understood
- Aim for the natural intonation one uses when communicating with feeling generally
- Almost everyone knows how to use intonation well, when they're speaking for themselves
- The job is to invoke this when reading in a meeting
- Try to avoid artificiality or excessive drama: it's not an audition, either
- But risk that if it avoids being mumbling, stuttering, incoherent, or just plain dull
- Risk making a fool of yourself for months or years to improve over time