About Reading Mountain

Reading Mountain was founded by Nasir and Zahra, a couple homeschooling their three children. The idea grew directly out of their experience as parents. While homeschooling their kids, they watched each one struggle with reading - all three faced reading challenges related to dyslexia. As they searched for help, they discovered there was no simple, effective way to teach reading to those who learn differently. They ended up following a custom approach that combined multiple different curriculums, and in the process realized this was a need far bigger than their own home: people of all ages - children and adults alike - struggle to read. There needs to be a simpler, proven way to learn. Reading Mountain is the result.

Zahra brings a deep foundation in literacy and education. She earned her undergraduate degree in English from Cornell University, graduating magna cum laude, and went on to complete a master's in secondary English education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She spent time teaching in inner-city middle and high schools, where she witnessed something that stayed with her: students reaching high school who had never learned to read, simply because they were never taught properly. Solving that problem became a calling. She then turned her focus to homeschooling, where she taught her own dyslexic children to read. Born and raised in upstate New York and now based in New Jersey, Zahra brings both classroom experience and academic expertise in literacy to Reading Mountain.

Nasir brings the technical backbone. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from Cornell University and a PhD in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Rutgers University, and he was an assistant professor at Purdue University. Over his career he has worked on artificial intelligence and software at Amazon, as well as at leading autonomous-vehicle companies that partnered with Ford, Volkswagen, and Hyundai. He left that career behind to commit himself fully to Reading Mountain, and his expertise in AI now shapes the technology behind it. His connection to the mission is also personal: Nasir shows many of the signs of dyslexia himself, has always found spelling difficult, and grew up struggling with reading and writing. Friends in high school would joke that his first language wasn't English, it was C++. Born and raised in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and now living in New Jersey, he understands the challenge Reading Mountain solves from the inside.

Nasir and Zahra built Reading Mountain around a clear conviction: literacy rates remain low not because people can't learn to read, but because they are not being taught properly - the right instruction simply isn't being provided. That is the problem Reading Mountain exists to solve.