A Love of Reading
Many people believe that children learn to listen and speak before learning to read and write. But in living with deafness, I learned to read before I learned to speak. Not only I read countless books as a child, I read everything I could get my hands on, including notes left on the kitchen
counter. After all, it wasn’t fair that my younger brother and cousins all got to overhear things such as who called on the telephone, what was planned for dinner, and when the grandparents were going to visit.
A Writer’s Journey
Since language, linguistics, and literacy are interrelated and reciprocal, I was always intentional about keeping journals and notes. Writing helped me to deeply process everything around me, in school, while working, and even while reading.
A Touch of Social Justice
While there are stories of myths, adventures, and fantasies among us, many stories urge readers to reflect on what it means to face overt or covert oppression. Over my adult years, I began to collect stories, those that were not only mine as a deaf person but of my hearing students in their exuberant and messy processes of learning to read. And poignant stories of numerous deaf and hard of hearing people across the country.
Author Bio
I am a retired literacy consultant who worked for over thirty years with teachers and their
students from all walks of life in a large public school system. I have written three professional books and several papers about language, linguistics, and literacy development. I live near Ann Arbor, Michigan with my husband. I write before the sun rises and then spend much of my days outdoors walking, canoeing, snowshoeing, or cross-country skiing. If the weather is unpleasant, I visit an indie bookshop or two and spend the rest of the day snuggled in, reading at home.
A Quote to Live By
“We can do no great things…Only small things with great love.”
—Mother Teresa
(This entire website and all of my books were written by me without the use of AI generation tools.)
Deborah L. Wolter 