Prepare and deliver an expressive oral reading of the finished story to a real audience, using pacing, volume, and expression to serve the story.
Reading a story aloud well is its own performance skill, separate from writing it: pacing (slowing down for tension, allowing a real pause before a big moment), volume (dropping quiet for an intimate line, not just getting louder for excitement), and expression (letting dialogue sound like different people speaking) all help an audience experience the story rather than just hear words.
Marking up a reading copy helps: lightly noting in the margins where to pause, where to slow down, and which lines of dialogue belong to which character, so these performance decisions are not made cold in front of an audience.
Mastery looks like: They deliver a prepared oral reading of their finished story using deliberate pacing, volume, and expression that serves the story's built-in tension.
Common stumbles: Reading straight through at one flat pace regardless of the story's tension; preparing so little that pacing and character-voice decisions are made cold in front of the audience.