Literacy educator Linda Akanbi is featured by Influential Women

Influential Women is highlighting Linda Akanbi, Ed.D., the Acworth, Georgia founder of ARS Educational Services and a retired Kennesaw State University reading educator. The profile underscores her work with multilingual learners, teacher education, and literacy advocacy, along with her push for more equitable reading instruction.

Why it matters: - Linda Akanbi’s career centers on reading support for children who need different approaches to learn well, including multilingual learners. - Her work reflects a broader debate over literacy access, teacher preparation, and how schools serve students from diverse language and cultural backgrounds. - Her profile also points to the continuing demand for consultation, assessment, and remedial reading support outside traditional classrooms.

What happened: - Influential Women featured Linda Akanbi, Ed.D., founder and managing member of ARS Educational Services LLC in Acworth, Georgia. - The profile identifies Akanbi as professor emeritus of reading education at Kennesaw State University. - ARS Educational Services provides reading consultation, literacy assessments, and remedial instruction for parents, schools, and childcare centers. - The feature highlights Akanbi’s long career in teacher education, literacy leadership, and program development in elementary and early childhood education.

The details: - Akanbi began her career as a remedial reading teacher after earning a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. - She later earned a master’s degree in reading education at the University at Buffalo. - While in graduate school, she worked as a reading coordinator in a university learning center, where she designed reading courses and trained graduate assistants. - Her higher-education roles included developing a master’s program in reading education, serving as department chair, and directing a K–12 Reading Institute. - After retiring from academic leadership in 2008, Akanbi founded Akanbi Reading Solutions and broadened her work to international perspectives on reading instruction. - She has also participated in global conferences and educational exchanges focused on literacy across linguistic and cultural contexts. - The profile says Akanbi remains active in literacy advocacy and continues to focus on supporting children in multilingual classrooms. - Her stated values include honesty, integrity, respect, fairness, justice, honor, responsibility, and perseverance. - The profile includes more information about her Influential Women page and her website.

Between the lines: - Akanbi’s story is framed as a lesson in persistence, with the profile emphasizing that her doctoral path included multiple advisor changes and one adviser who told her to give up if she moved to Africa with her Nigerian husband. - The feature uses her experience to argue that effective teaching depends on flexibility, close attention to students, and a willingness to try different methods when one approach fails. - Her comments on current education challenges point to political fights over curriculum, books, funding, and diversity-related issues as part of a wider struggle over what children learn. - The profile also presents grassroots organizing and scholarship support as a counterforce to what Akanbi views as harmful political pressure on education.

What’s next: - Akanbi says she will keep advocating for children’s literacy, especially in classrooms where students speak different languages and come from different cultural backgrounds. - Her continued work through ARS Educational Services suggests a focus on direct support for families, schools, and childcare providers. - The profile positions her as an ongoing voice in conversations about reading instruction, teacher preparation, and educational equity.

The bottom line: - Linda Akanbi’s profile is a reminder that literacy work is both instructional and political, and that individualized reading support can shape a child’s long-term academic path.