Deanna Bryan
Deanna Bryan began her teaching career working with children with severe disabilities. While
teaching in a life skills classroom, she met a student that she believed could learn to read. She began
tutoring this student one on one and this is where her passion for teaching reading began. Ms.
Bryan spent most of her teaching career working with middle school students. She was a public
school special education reading teacher for 9½ years before going to work for the Vaughn Gross
Center for Reading and Language Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. At the Vaughn Gross
Center, she worked as a research assistant and then as an instructional coach. She was also a member
of the development team for the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies. Ms. Bryan believes
middle school teachers are special and feel they are called to work with this unique age group. She
hopes that this book will serve these teachers well. Ms. Bryan currently resides in Austin, Texas,
with her husband and two children.