Watch This Face John Chaloner Woods

Here is help and reassurance for anyone confronting hearing loss for first time. At some point as we get older about a quarter of us ought to start using a hearing aid. But we won't get the best results from that alone and should combine it with lipreading. John Chaloner Woods was a firm advocate of lipreading classes, but for practice on our own with a mirror, with a friend or with the television, for those who can't get to classes or who want to experiment a little first, this guide to ,”seeing the sound of speech' will be the greatest help.

It is organised around a series of photographs of the lipshapes illustrating those sounds that can be shown as static pictures. They can often provide the key to a whole word or sentence. John Chaloner Woods explains how they Can be used and built on most effectively. From his own experience of learning lipreading, he warns us of the likely pitfalls. He also provides a wide variety of material that we can practise in front of our mirrors or that others can speak to us, helping us to gain familiarity and confidence in seeing speech.

John Chaloner Woods was a 'graduate' of the lipreading classes held by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) and the City Lit Centre for Deaf People, London. This booklet is based on his original text in Lipreading - A Guide for Beginners, first published by RNID in 1986.