More Than Just Lip Service

Francine Hokin-Katz takes pride in giving good “lip service,” but you can’t just run off at the mouth around her.

Even the best lip-readers will fall behind if a speaker talks too fast, explains the longtime Pasadena City College instructor, who gives free lip-reading and memory enhancement classes at six locations in the San Gabriel Valley weekly.

The human eye can see only eight or nine mouth movements per second, whereas the ears can hear 13 or 14 sounds per second, according to Hokin-Katz.

The trick to learning to lip-read is to distinguish as many letters as you can, and fill in the rest through educated guesses based on the context of the speech. This, Hokin-Katz says, means the brain has to work as hard as the eyes.

“You learn to look at language as well as listen to it,” she says.

Students also learn patience. It takes about a year of practice to begin understanding people’s normal speech, and the process never really ends, Hokin-Katz says. But the benefits bring back loyal students.

People learning to lip-read actually find their memories improve as well, she says.

“The people I’ve worked with for 12 to 14 years have sharper memory,” says Hokin-Katz, who has seen enrollment grow from 20 to 220 for the six classes.

Though most of the students are hearing-impaired, Hokin-Katz says it is just as important for their spouses and others to learn lip-reading, as much to be aware and considerate as to learn the skill.

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“People can be cruel and impatient” to the hearing-impaired, she says. “It’s an invisible handicap.”

Read her lips.

The two-hour lip-reading and memory enhancement classes, sponsored by Pasadena City College, are taught at Temple City Christian Church on Mondays and Thursdays at 9:30 a.m.; Pilgrim Towers North in Pasadena on Mondays at 1 p.m.; Monte Vista Grove Homes in Pasadena on Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m.; Villa Gardens in Pasadena on Tuesdays at 1 p.m.; Lamanda Park Library in Pasadena on Wednesdays at 1 p.m., and at the Arcadia Community Center on Wednesdays at 9 a.m. Information: (818) 585-7338.