He holds a master’s in Applied Linguistics/ESL and a doctorate in Reading, Language and Literacy Education, both from Georgia State University. For his dissertation research, he designed reading fluency interventions for struggling college readers and examined the effects of these interventions on various cognitive processes including the ability to construct coherent mental models from narrative passages. After completing his doctoral work at Georgia State, Ari worked with young struggling readers at Appalachian State University’s (ASU) renowned Reading Clinic while teaching courses on the foundations of literacy and psychological processes of reading as a clinical instructor at ASU’s Reading Education and Special Education Department.