Chapter 32

Chapter 32 is about lip-reading. I had been looking forward to reading this chapter for quite some time now. The chapter explains very well that lip-reading is something very few people are able to do. Words can be hard to make out when you lip-read. The book says this, "Can you read my lips? This is the one question all deaf people can undoubtedly speechread!" (p. 191). I understand why it would be the one thing all deaf people can do because I'm sure they get this question all the time. It is the first question some people probably ask them. The book mentions a few things that I would have never thought about when reading lips. 

30% of spoken words can be seen through the lips. 
Homophones? 
Facial Expression
Mouth movement 

Homophones are hard to explain to children when they can hear, see, and visualize the word. It would be difficult to understand the context of the homophone if you are lip reading and are only getting parts of the conversation. 

Facial expression is important in speech. It is extremely important in the Deaf culture so Deaf people want to look at your entire face, not zoom in on your mouth. If you are focusing your attention on the mouth and what you are lip reading, you are not able to get the full context of what they're saying.

Mouth movement is something everyone does differently. Some people move their mouth a lot when they talk, some barely at all. I could understand where some Deaf people would get tired of trying to understand you if they aren't used to the way your mouth moves. 

While reading this chapter a question popped up in my head. If some Deaf people have trouble with English sentence structure, wouldn't it make lip-reading even more difficult. Hearing people would speak in English sentence order. I feel like it would be hard to understand, even if you can lip-read.