#2072. Speechreading

Language, level: Middle
Posted Wed Dec 6 17:00:12 PST 2000 by Megan McCafferty (ppgh@grove.iup.edu).
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, Pennsylvania
Materials Required: paper and scripts
Activity Time: about 1 hour
Concepts Taught: speechreading

Lesson Plan on Speechreading
By Megan McCafferty

The students have all expressed their concern about their lack of understanding during classroom activities. It has been determined that these students need speech reading skills in order to fully comprehend classroom instruction and participate in classroom activities. It has become apparent that all of these students need to improve on their speechreading skills in order to keep up with their academic standing.

For the past few weeks each one of the students have been working on specific speechreading skills that apply to them personally. It is important to first teach them how to speechread the sounds that they are unable to hear with the assistance of their hearing aid. Once they were comfortable with the sounds they had difficulty with previously, we went over several things that are important when becoming an effective speechreader, such as attending to the face and asking specific questions when the message was missed.

Rationale
Speechreading is one of the most important tools a person with hearing loss can learn. It is a technique used to understand the spoken word by attending to the mouth and facial cues. For these five students speechreading skills will only help them improve on their communication skills in the classroom as well as in everyday life. Speechreading will allow each of the students to understand the individuals they are speaking with or those who are giving them instructions (teachers). This particular lesson will give the students an opportunity to use the skills they have been using in the past few weeks and apply them to a real situation.

Objectives
1. Each student will participate in an activity using their speechreading skills they have learned in the past few weeks.
2. We will address any questions or concerns the students may have now that they have used their knowledge in a more practical setting.

Lesson
Introduction
We will first briefly discuss the concepts we have been learning about speechreading to review the knowledge they have gained from their previous lessons. It will be a brief ten or fifteen minute question and answer session that will enable the students to show the knowledge they have learned and to help each other in their weaker areas.
Body
Each student will be paired with another individual in the classroom, since we have an odd number one of the students will be working with the clinician. One of the partners (partner 1) will be given a piece of paper with a short paragraph about a familiar topic. This student will read the paragraph to their partner with the piece of paper in front of their mouth.
Notes
It is important to remember that each one of these students will progress at a different rate. We have kept them all in the same group in hopes that those who are highly motivated will have a positive effect on those who are less motivated to learn the skill of speechreading.
Web Sites
Here are some web sites that can give you some excellent information about children with hearing
loss, tools you can use in instruction and basic knowledge of the difficulties that face these children.
http://www.nationalspeech.com
http://www.bungalowsoftware.com
http://speechpaths.com