Adapted from a discussion with parents at Salk Middle School (a Manhattan public school) by Dr. Mary Ehrenworth, Columbia Teachers College.

According to Dr. Mary Ehrenworth, one of the foremost experts on teen literacy, there is a direct, quantifiable relationship between a child's ability to read and his or her overall academic success. The correlation is so strong, in fact, that even the most basic reading test can usually predict a student's SAT scores -- both verbal and math -- with surprising accuracy. Not that it's surprising to Dr. Ehrenworth. As students get older, she points out, they're expected to read and comprehend longer, more complex works, everything from the proverbial 400-page "classic novel" to daunting 15-pound science textbooks. If they can read well, great, but if they can't, they won't keep up.

Unfortunately, students receive almost no reading instruction beyond sixth grade. Teachers simply expect students to keep up with hours of assigned reading per day with little patience -- much less assistance -- for those who can't. Sounds like a losing battle, but it's not, because whether their children admit it or not, parents are still their primary influence and there's a lot parents can do to help their teens become better readers.

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