Living with hearing loss, I have always wanted to take a lipreading course, but was never able to find one in New York City that worked with my schedule. So when I learned about a new online tutorial created by the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association – Newfoundland and Labrador (CHHA-NL), I was excited to give it a go. Read My Lips is a self-paced online course that uses videos, exercises, and quizzes to demonstrate and teach basic lipreading skills.
I consider myself a good lipreader, but most of my knowledge has come intuitively, driven by necessity. Taking the Read My Lips classes helped me gain a firmer understanding of the basic lip, tongue and jaw movements involved in many letter sounds. Knowing the mechanics of how the sounds are made can only improve my skills. I am glad I took the course.
What is Lipreading?
According to Wikipedia, “Lipreading or speechreading is a technique of understanding speech by visually interpreting the movement of the lips, face and tongue.” Most people with hearing loss use lipreading to aid with communication, even if they are not aware they are doing so. The ability to lipread comes naturally to some people, while others struggle with it. Training and practice can improve lipreading skills over time.
Some people are easier to lipread than others which makes it difficult to rely on lipreading alone for communication, although, some of my hearing loss friends are quite skilled at it. I am in awe of their powers of observation and concentration. For me, if I know the context and a space is well-lit, a combination of my aided residual hearing and lipreading can get me a large portion of the way towards understanding. It does require a lot of concentration and mental energy to do it well.
Helpful Online Lipreading Course
The Read My Lips on-line course is divided into eight lessons, each focused on a set of letters that appear similarly on the lips and face. They include: (1) F, V, Ph; (2) P, B, M; (3) Th; (4) W, Wh; (5) Sh, Ch; (6) L; (7) T, D, N; and (8) J (Soft G).
For each letter group, a captioned video demonstrates and explains how the sound is made. For example, “For the “J (Soft G)” lip movement your teeth are just about touching, but the lips are forward in a rounded-square shape to show your teeth.”
Students then practice the skill using a series of additional videos with different people mouthing relevant words or phrases. After watching each video, you choose which of the written answers below matches what is being said. You can watch the videos (taken from two different angles) as many times as needed before making your selection. The videos have no audible dialogue, but having the written words/phrases below is a big help.
Several “speakers” — two men and two women — are used for the videos to add variety and a does of reality. Each person had different sized lips and their own unique way of speaking. Some were easier for me to lipread than others, as might be expected.
Some of the lipreading exercises provided a topic area for context while others did not, once again demonstrating how much easier it is to communicate when context is provided up front.
At the end of each lesson, there is a quiz to make sure you can properly identify the lip movements associated with each sound pattern. An 80% score is required on each quiz to successfully complete the course.
Read My Lips costs C$49 for 6-months of access to the course. After I successfully finished the eight lessons, including passing each of the quizzes, I received a certificate of completion. I look forward to putting my enhanced lipreading skills to the test in real life.
Readers, would you take an online speechreading class?