East Cleveland | Youth and Families
Sasha Beckette-Abdullah is on a mission to help Black families put reading at the top of their value ladder. Her journey began as she read to her own children and she saw their engagement during story time. From that, and her understanding that on average students lose academic ground during the summer, known as the “summer slide”, she held a Bye-Bye Summer Slide Reading camp. A fun-filled, family-oriented literacy event, its mission was to motivate children and adults to read using interactive read alouds. Out of that activity, Sasha formed ABC Read and became its Executive Director. ABC Read is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization that encourages Black families to read utilizing engaging interactive read alouds, distributes books that represent children from the Black community so the families can begin to build their own home libraries, and provides healthy snacks. Through her various read aloud events she has been able to connect with parents whose children have trouble with reading fluency, comprehension, and other reading challenges, as well as providing resources which address these issues. Sasha has a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and utilizes the Orton-Gillingham approach.
