Lori Penesis knows a thing or two about overcoming adversity. She has run the New York City Marathon twice, speeding along a route that snakes past Automotive High School in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where she works at an after-school outreach program organized by New York City Outward Bound. She completed the 26.2 miles despite the fact that she lost part of one leg to cancer 20 years ago. At both of her races, 2000 and 2001, she set a course record for disabled women.

However infectious her enthusiasm for her work, it may be her personal determination that inspires the Automotive students whose reading skills she helps improve. They face plenty of their own struggles. Although the school came off the city’s failing-school list last year, the average freshman enters the 829-student body reading at a fourth- or fifth grade level.

“Kids want to look cool,” said Ms. Penesis, wearing a runner’s watch, khaki pants, a maroon long-sleeve top, and slip-on shoes. “Adolescents have difficulty admitting ‘I have trouble reading.'” But once they come to terms with the limitations of their knowledge, they can push to overcome them.

“Last year was a great year here,” Ms. Penesis said in a characteristically passionate tone. “Everything clicked. The teachers are so caring and invested in seeing the kids do better and not settling. The kids – I had a ball with them.”

Outward Bound’s unique approach may have accounted for part of the success of both teachers and students. The teenagers have been challenged in a new way – and thus given a new way to reach their goals – since the program began in 2003.

“Lots of kids could be college material,” Ms. Penesis said. “They just don’t know it. They don’t recognize themselves as learners.” She talked about one of her first experiences with her group at Automotive High School. “I took them out climbing at the tower, a 55-foot climbing structure in Floyd Bennett Field.” There she found a parallel to what happens when the students try to read.

“What I saw on that first day is that when these kids, who are very challenged readers, hit some place hard, they just want to come down,” she said. “It took a lot for them to start working through it,” she said. In the end, “Almost everyone got to the top.”

In addition to improving their reading, students learn “how to help others – how to correct, rather than laugh or snicker,” Ms. Penesis said.

The Outward Bound model puts students into groups to encourage them to learn from one another. “Kids discuss what helps them,” Ms. Penesis explained. “Some like to be encouraged; some like silence.

“In reading groups as the year progressed, we really worked on improving weaknesses,” she said. Progress on the page translated to other parts of their lives. “When I took them climbing in springtime, man, what a difference,” she said.

She and the other literacy instructors had created a learning environment that worked. “It hit me. I saw them doing things outside of school. They’d volunteer to help cleanup, put things away.”

After half a school year, Ms. Penesis and her colleagues at Automotive High School measured big strides in their students’ reading. “About a two-year level gain from January to May,” she said. Still, the children most in need don’t gravitate toward after-school programs. “Beginning readers are the hardest to draw after school. I’d like to learn how to help those kids more,” revealed Ms. Penesis.

Ms. Penesis grew up in Allentown, Pa., and attended public school. “I was always a good student but hated school, probably because of shyness,” she said.

“What really turned things on for me was calculus and physics,” she said. “I have a terrible memory. Math is a way not to memorize. It clicked for me in high school. I very much wanted to be a physicist, but my parents and my brother, who is an organic chemist, said physics is not practical.”

Discovering an academic strength was only one hurdle she got over as a teenager. In 1985, at age 18, she was diagnosed with cancer.

The illness gave her a first taste of New York. “I came to New York originally for treatment,” she recalled. “I hated New York at first and then I started liking it,” she said. “At first it was tied to the cancer therapy,” she said, recalling the diesel exhaust at Port Authority Bus Terminal, where she arrived and departed for home. “I would literally throw up,” she said.

Slowly, her opinion of the hustle and bustle started to change: “I liked the diversity,” she said. She ultimately decided to come to the city to study physics and engineering at Cooper Union and New York University.

In 1987, she moved here, taking time off from school to compete in the Paralympics in Korea in 1988 and Barcelona in 1992.

She began rock-climbing and ended up meeting the designers of New York’s Outward Bound ropes course. (The “ropes course,” an essential element in Outward Bound, involves getting through a series of physical challenges.)

“When you have a physics degree and all you want is part-time work, no one wants to hire you,” Ms. Penesis said. But New York City Outward Bound School invited her to the staff training in the late 1990s. She’s been onboard ever since.

“I loved it. For me, it was great to see kids who, if I didn’t have exposure to, I wouldn’t understand. The most satisfying work was long-term contact, seeing them grow.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation made a substantial contribution to New York Outward Bound school, funding what Ms. Penesis sees as her next big challenge – and opportunity.

“We just started a new pilot program that I’m really excited about at our new Gates School – Bronx Expeditionary Learning High School. At BELHS, we’re working with students of need and/or interest on literacy skills through a program that combines readers’ and writers’ workshops, book clubs, and a community portrait project. Students will actually put their literacy skills to use by interviewing others and capturing the interview using Story Corps.

“It’s incredible what these kids have been through. They have all this passion and intelligence but don’t ever find a forum to communicate it back like writing. Journaling is a just a start.”