Rachel de Azevedo Coleman (born October 9, 1974) is an American producer and actress. With her sister

Emilie de Azevedo Brown Emilie Brown is an American voice actress, producer, and director. Before moving out of the Los Angeles area, she did several anime voice roles mostly under the names Emily Brown, Mary Cobb and Marie Downing. One of her earliest voice acting rol ...

, she created the''

Signing Time! ''Signing Time!'' is an American television program targeted towards children aged one through eight that teaches American Sign Language. It is filmed in the United States and was created by sisters Emilie Brown and Rachel Coleman, the latter ...

'' video series to teach children basic

American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual lang ...

(ASL), which was broadcast on public television. She produces, directs, and stars in the series, and handles much of its operations as co-founder of Two Little Hands Productions.

Biography

Coleman was born on October 9, 1974, to Lex and Linda de Azevedo as the fifth of nine children. Her father

Lex de Azevedo Alexis King de Azevedo (born January 14, 1943) is an American composer, song writer, pianist, actor and singer known primarily for his film scores and his work on ''The Swan Princess'' of which one of his songs was nominated for a Golden Globe A ...

is an American

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

composer known primarily for his film scores. Lex's mother, and her grandmother is Alyce King of

The King Sisters The King Sisters were an American big band-era vocal group consisting of six sisters: Alyce, Donna, Luise, Marilyn, Maxine, and Yvonne King. History Born and raised in Pleasant Grove, Utah, the King sisters were part of the Driggs family of e ...

. Coleman and her father won a

Pearl Award :''This article deals with music's role in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints outside of the context of worship; for hymns, see The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hymns or for the hymnal Hymns of The Church of Jesus Chr ...

in 2007 for songs they had done for children. As Rachel De Azevedo she has been credited in several episodes of ''Touched by an Angel''. Before moving out of the Los Angeles area, she performed with the band We the Living and appeared in the made-for-TV movie ''Spring Fling''. In 1998, Coleman and her husband Aaron discovered that their 14-month-old child was deaf. She began learning sign language. In 2001, together with her sister, she created ''Signing Time!'', a children's video series that teaches basic ASL to children of all abilities. In 2008, she was nominated for the "Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series," for the 35th Annual Daytime Entertainment Emmys. Her work with ''Signing Time!'' led her to create the Signing Time Foundation for the promotion of accessible communication for all children. In 2013, she began a campaign to crowd-fund a new children's series, ''Rachel & the TreeSchoolers'', after it was turned down by networks for being too educational for television. As of April 2016, nine episodes in this series have been released. In 2018, Coleman became the executive director of the

American Society for Deaf Children Rachel de Azevedo Coleman (born October 9, 1974) is an American producer and actress. With her sister Emilie de Azevedo Brown, she created the'' Signing Time!'' video series to teach children basic American Sign Language (ASL), which was broadcas ...

Filmography

* '' Signing Time! Series 1'' (13 volumes) * '' Signing Time! Series 2'' (13 volumes) * ''Baby Signing Time'' (4 volumes) * ''Practice Time!'' (2 volumes) * ''Potty Time!'' (1 volume) * ''Rachel & the TreeSchoolers'' (9 volumes) * ''Signing Time Christmas Collection'' (1 volume) * ''Signing Time Sentences'' (3 volumes) * ''Signing Time Nursery Rhymes'' (1 volume) * ''Sign It! American Sign Language Made Easy'' (20 lessons) * ''Louder Than Words'' * ''Saturday's Warrior'' (2016 version) – producer

References

External links

* *
Sign It ASL bio
1974 births American educators American television actresses Living people 21st-century American actresses Actresses from Los Angeles Singers from Los Angeles 21st-century American singers 21st-century American women singers Educators of the deaf {{US-singer-stub