Reading: One of the best ways to prepare your teenager for college
By Lynn O’Shaughnessy
Author of “The College Solution”
One of the best ways you can prepare your teenager for college is to encourage her to read. As a practical matter, a teenager who reads is not only likely to achieve better grades in high school, but also earn higher scores on the SAT or ACT.
I understand how hard it can be to get many teenagers to pick up a book. My daughter is a reader, but my son is not. What should help is giving teenagers lots of choices by compiling a summer reading list. One of my favorite places to get ideas for books for teenagers is the California Reading List. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/readinglist.asp
The California Department of Education has compiled the California Reading List, which includes great recommendations for high school students of different reading levels. If you visit the site, you’ll find 13 reading lists that are designed to correspond with a teenager’s reading abilities. Some of the books, such as “The Aeneid,” make multiple lists.
Here is a sampling of books that I culled from the state’s recommended teen reading lists:
* “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Eric Maria Remarque
* “Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden
* “Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister” by Gregory Maguire
* “Dune” Frank Herbert
* “Fahrenheit 451″ by Ray Bradbury
* “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck
* “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen
* “Nothing But the Truth” by Avi
* “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams
* “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enough” Nzoke Shange
Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of “The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price.” She also blogs about college at TheCollegeSolutionBlog.com and CBSMoneyWatch.com.
