… Tom Parker, former admissions director at Williams College and now at Amherst College, tells parents who ask about improving their child’s SAT scores, “The best SAT-preparation course in the world is to read to your children in bed when they’re little. Eventually, if that’s a wonderful experience for them, they’ll start to read themselves.” Parker, who has interviewed some of America’s finest applicants, claims he’s never met a student with high verbal SAT scores who wasn’t a passionate reader. And the SAT-prep course can’t package that passion, but parents can.

- from The Read Aloud Handbook, Fifth Edition by Jim Trelease