May 12 2008
Rachel in the New York Daily News!
Rachel Coleman was featured in a New York Daily News article last week. The article is ‘Sign language singer nabs Emmy nom,’ written by Rosemary Black. I have also pasted the article below. Hope you enjoy!
Sign language singer nabs Emmy nom
Thursday, May 8th 2008, 4:00 AM
Rachel Coleman founded “Signing Time” after learning her daughter was deaf.
Just one month after Leah Coleman’s birth in 1996, the hospital where she’d been born began mandatory newborn hearing screenings. It was too late for Leah, who spent the first 14 months of her life in a soundless world. Then her parents, Rachel and Aaron, learned that she was profoundly deaf – and Rachel reacted by putting down her guitar and forsaking the folk rock band she loved so much. Desperate to communicate with her daughter but having no knowledge of sign language as she had never known anyone who was deaf, she learned American sign language and taught it to Leah.
A decade later, through her “Signing Time” music CDs, DVDs and on PBS stations around the country, she’s teaching sign language to millions of children, many with normal hearing. Last week, Rachel, host of “Signing Time” and the creator of all its original songs, was nominated for an Emmy Award.
“I didn’t believe it,” Coleman says. “I asked someone to call and double-check that it was really for me.”
The 35th annual Daytime Entertainment Emmy awards – her nomination is for “Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series” — will be broadcast live on June 20 from Hollywood.
Rachel’s triumphant trip to Tinseltown was a long time coming, and marked in spots by plenty of heartbreak – and plenty of exhilaration and gratitude, too.