Once struggling reader and now honor roll student and community leader, Zahara Taylor is on a mission to ensure that more students who look like her gain access to reading— ultimately achieving academic success and realizing their true potential and value. At a very early age, Zahara recalls, “I wasn’t a strong reader. There was no joy in reading and there should have been joy.” In middle school, Zahara was introduced to Learning Ally by her reading tutor and acknowledges that being able to listen and follow along with the text from the audiobook allowed her to finally read independently.
Now having the ability to read, she can actually experience the joy of reading. As Zahara’s perspective on her academic capability shifted, she gained confidence in herself and recognized that she had the potential to accomplish her goals and compete for academic opportunities. In 2024 when Zahara was nominated and accepted as Maryland’s Hoby Youth Leadership representative, she attended workshops with peers from around the state to develop awareness of their leadership strengths and understand their leadership values. During this four-day program, Zahara reflected on her own struggles with reading and learning and recognized that she had the means and parental support to get the tools she needed to succeed in school and in life. She noticed that many students who looked like her did not have those types of resources, and she wanted to give other struggling readers the opportunity to read and reach their academic potential.
As her community service project, she created “I Love Reading”, a program aimed at encouraging black children to read. Zahara specifically wanted to help low-income students and identified schools in the DC area that would benefit from her project. With the support of her mother, Zahara secured three schools to participate, two elementary schools and one middle school. She raised close to $2,000 to provide culturally relevant books to the elementary schools and ten Learning Ally family memberships to students attending Howard Middle School. She rallied her friends and dance group to join her in creating reading nooks in the elementary school classrooms and administering read-alouds for the younger students. She went to the middle school and shared her story with the students, serving as a model for what could be possible.
Zahara is proud that she was able to raise the funds to help support her program. And we are extremely proud of Zahara for finding the leader within herself and helping transform the lives of students who, just like her, struggled with reading and now can say that, “I Love Reading!” Thank you, Zahara, for your herculean efforts in raising both funds and awareness to support students with Learning Ally’s Audiobook Solution.
If your child is interested in developing a community service project, please consider supporting students who struggle with reading due to a visual impairment or learning difference such as dyslexia. Create your own fundraiser or learn about how you can get involved!