1. Reading and the Deaf / Hard of Hearing Student
Newsletter May 2008
Chair, Michele Gennaoui
St. Francis de Sales School for the Deaf, Brooklyn, New York
mgennaoui@sfdesales.org
Secretary, Jennifer Storey
cjstorey@bctonline.com
© TPM 05

2. What to See At This Convention
May 6, 10:45am to 11:45am - Susan Fullerton
Self-Correction and Early Literacy Processes: A Comparison of Deaf and Hearing Readers
Georgia World Congress Center - B407
May 7, 2:00pm to 3:15pm - Myron Uhlberg, children’s author
Special Interest Group for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Readers
Dad, Jackie, And Me: Deaf Black and Hearing: What’s the connection? The story behind the
story.
Georgia World Congress Center - B302
May 7, 2:00pm to 3:30pm - Barbara Schirmer and Laura Shaffer
Research Poster Session
Strategies for Teaching English Language and Struggling Learners Guided Reading Approach:
Application to Deaf Students
Georgia World Congress Center - B213-B214
An Update on Author Myron Uhlberg
Myron Uhlberg’s latest work is a memoir. It will be published by Bantam Dell, a division of
Random House, in February 2009.
At the SIG meeting Myron will discuss the blending of his children's books, The Printer, and
Dad, Jackie, and Me....and the upcoming, The Sound of All Things--which will be the final book
in the trilogy of the hearing boy and his deaf parents, into his adult memoir,
Hands Of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, And The Language Of Love.
Myron will be showing many of the family photos of his Father, Mother, and himself that will be
reproduced in the memoir. Taking us on a journey to a world that he found unaccountably
beautiful, even as he longed to escape it, Myron Uhlberg describes what it was like to grow up as
the hearing son of two deaf people. Louis and Sarah married and had their first child, Myron, at
the absolute bottom of the Great Depression – an expression of extraordinary optimism, and
typical of the joy and resilience these two were able to summon at even the darkest of times.
Their son’s first language was American Sign Language, the first sign he learned: “I love you.”
But his second language was spoken English, and no sooner did he learn it than he was called
upon to act as his father’s designated ears and mouth in the stores and streets beyond their silent
apartment. This meant not just straddling the worlds of the hearing and the deaf, but reversing
the roles of parent and child in order to translate adult words and concepts to his father – and
then having to flip back again to being just what he was: his father’s little boy.
A love letter to his parents, this is also a memoir filled with hilarious stories about growing up as
2

3. a book-loving, mischief-making, tree-climbing kid in Brooklyn during the period that spanned
the Depression, the War, and the early 50s. Listening to the radio he had to sign for his father
every blow in the historic boxing match between America’s Brown Bomber Joe Louis and
Hitler’s Master Race champion Max Schmeling, and conversely his father signed to him his own
vivid descriptions of every battle on the European and Pacific fronts. From the beaches of Coney
Island to the Dodger’s Ebbets Field where he went to watch his father’s hero, Jackie Robinson,
play ball, from the hospital ward where he visits his polio-afflicted friend in an iron lung to the
branch library above the local Chinese restaurant where every book is suffused with the haunting
smell of soy sauce, he tells a tale that will move and enchant.
Myron Uhlberg is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of a number of children’s
books. He lives with his wife in Santa Monica and Palm Springs.
Dad, Jackie and Me
IT IS THE SUMMER OF 1947 and a highly charged baseball season is underway in New York. Jackie
Robinson is the new first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers--and the first black player in Major League
Baseball. A young boy shares the excitement of Robinson's rookie season with his deaf father.
Each day he listens eagerly to the Brooklyn Dodgers games on the radio. When his father arrives home
from work, the boy uses sign language to tell him about the Dodgers. His father begins to keep a
scrapbook, clipping photos and articles about Jackie. Finally one day the father delivers some big news:
they are going to Ebbets Field to watch Jackie play in person!
Author Myron Uhlberg offers a nostalgic look back at 1947, and pays tribute to Jackie Robinson, the
legendary athlete and hero who brought a father and son--and an entire New York community--together for
one magical summer. Illustrator Colin Bootman's realistic, full-color illustrations capture the details of the
period and the excitement of an entire city as Robinson helps the Dodgers win the long-awaited pennant.
Dad, Jackie, and Me has now garnered 25 awards (including the prestigious American Library
Schneider Family Book Award), and much critical acclaim. It is in its seventh printing.
A magical story of how a young boy's everyday world is
transformed into a snow-covered wonderland through the force of
a blizzard and the power of a dream.
3

4. "As a boy, my father learned to speak with his hands. As a man, he
learned how to turn lead-type letters into words and sentences. My
father loved being a printer."
Websites and Articles of Interest
http://www.k12academics.com:80/deaf.htm
Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature
http://pajka.blogspot.com
The Reading Teacher December 2007/January 2008
“Authoring With Video” by Barbara K. Strassman, & Trisha O’Connell
Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Educations Winter 2008
“The Signed Reading Fluency of Students Who Are Deaf/Hard of Hearing” Susan R. Easterbrooks
& Sandra G. Huston
Become a member!
IRA has been supportive of Deaf Education issues. Become a member of the SIG to keep issues of
deaf and hard of hearing literacy in the forefront of IRA. The current number of members allows
IRA to provide the SIG a meeting of an hour and 15 minutes at the annual convention. Increased
membership will increase our meeting time. Please become a member and encourage membership
among your colleagues.
In order to be a member of the SIG you must be a current member of the IRA (reading.org) and
submit your IRA membership number to the SIG. and a special bonus…dues will no longer be
collected!
Jennifer Storey is continuing to compile a database of email addresses in order to publicize the SIG
to interested educators.
IRA provides Sign Language Interpreters
It is the policy of IRA to provide sign language interpreters if deaf convention
attendees make this request on their registration forms. All sessions can be
accessible to deaf and hard of hearing participants.
4

5. Save this date! May 3-7, 2009
IRA’s 54th Annual Convention
Minneapolis, Minnesota
The Special Interest Group for Reading and Deaf and Hard of Hearing
will meet on Thursday morning May 7, 2009
Sharon Pajka-West will present:
Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature
A Collection of adolescent books with Deaf Characters, websites, author
interviews and book reviews.
Acquiring fictional books that include deaf characters can be time-consuming and challenging
for teachers and librarians. The research examining deaf characters in fiction is extremely
limited. In 2007, I started an educational blog, Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature
(http://www.pajka.blogspot.com/) which stemmed from a conversation with a former high school
student who requested summer reading. She challenged me with the stipulation that my book
recommendation must include a deaf character similar to her and her peers. Through my research
I found that readers also showed a preference for a wide spectrum of deaf characters. I am proud
to say that now I can truly recommend books with multiple realities of the Deaf human
experience. On my blog, there are books with characters who use American Sign Language, who
attend residential schools for the Deaf, who have a Deaf family, who wear cochlear implants, and
since most of the Deaf characters in literature are white, I can even recommend a book with a
character who is African-American.
My initial goal for the blog was to have a place to compile details from my research, to list books
with deaf characters, and to recommend books to all the students out in cyberspace who were
seeking characters similar to themselves. In less than one year, my blog now includes over
twenty author interviews and a list of 167 contemporary books with deaf characters ranging from
juvenile chapter books to cross-over adult books. There is even a companion newsletter, YADC
(Young Adult Deaf Characters) that is published quarterly on-line and free of charge.
Happy Reading!
Sharon Pajka-West, Ph.D
5