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The disquieting side effect of our increasingly detailed longitudinal studies of students is we keep finding warning signs of a future graduation derailment earlier and earlier in a child's school years.

Robert Balfanz of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found those warning signs as early as 6th grade— chronic absences, poor behavior, failing math or language arts, which when put together lead to a 90 percent risk that a student won't graduate on time.

A study to be released this morning at the American Educational Research Association convention here in New Orleans presents an even earlier warning sign: A student who can't read on grade level by 3rd grade is four times less likely to graduate by age 19 than a child who does read proficiently by that time. Add poverty to the mix, and a student is 13 times less likely to graduate on time than his or her proficient, wealthier peer.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - A CBS News Correspondent opened up to NewsChannel 5 about what he calls his shameful secret.

Byron Pitts, correspondent for CBS's "60 Minutes" has interviewed the past 6 presidents, dodged bullets in Afghanistan, and brought home dozens of journalism awards in his 30 years of reporting.

But on Sunday, he was in Murfreesboro for a conference about literacy and reading. Pitts was standing as an unlikely poster child of illiteracy.

"Nothing about where I come from suggests I should be doing what I am doing right now," said Pitts.

For the first 12 years of his life, Pitts admitted he couldn't read.

My sixteen-year-old son Haley recently came into my office and announced that he’d finished a six-hundred-page manuscript. I suppose that would be unusual coming from any sixteen-year-old, but given my son’s background, it’s especially stunning.

Haley is ADHD and dyslexic. At seven, he hated school. He would hide under the dining room table to avoid reading or doing his homework. My novels about Percy Jackson began as bedtime stories for him – a father’s desperate attempt to keep his son interested in reading. That’s also why I made Percy Jackson ADHD and dyslexic, and made those two conditions indicators of Olympian blood.

SAN FRANCISCO — Even as audio versions of best-sellers fill store shelves and new technology fuels the popularity of digitized books, the number of titles accessible to people who are blind or dyslexic is minuscule.

A new service being announced Thursday by the nonprofit Internet Archive in San Francisco is trying to change that. The group has hired hundreds of people to scan thousands of books into its digital database — more than doubling the titles available to people who aren't able to read a hard copy.

Brewster Kahle, the organization's founder, says the project will initially make 1 million books available to the visually impaired, using money from foundations, libraries, corporations and the government. He's hoping a subsequent book drive will add even more titles to the collection.

Change.  Finding common ground.  These are hallmarks of this Administration.  And today, we move one step closer to full access to books and materials for millions of Americans with print and other disabilities.  While much work remains to be done, the community of stakeholders has taken a noteworthy and important step forward.

The Reading Rights Coalition, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers have issued a joint statement stating “that the contents of books should be as accessible to individuals with print disabilities as they are to everyone else.”  They further agreed to work together to reach this desired goal.