In describing how a passage of writing sounds, student says “it reads good.”
Teacher A says that is wrong, and it should be “it reads well.”
Teacher B says while that’s correct formally, “it reads good” might well be acceptable as everyday colloquial usage.
Teacher C calls B an illiterate philistine bastard, and backs up A.
Following much bloodshed, the matter is taken to the SDMB.
“It reads well” is correct. Defenses from colloquial use can sometimes be valid but oftentimes just stupid. If that criterion is taken to its logical extreme then practically nothing could ever be called grammatically incorrect.
But a record sounds good. Hmmmmm…
It’s very substandard usage, but not incorrect as a construction.
Here’s the point: well as an adverb points to “reads” and describes the skillfulness of the subject at the action of the verb, viz, “to read.” Good is a predicate adjective modifying the subject, in this case that for which “It” stands, and describing it in terms of the verb.
“Winnie the Pooh reads well” would indicate the literacy level of Christopher Robin’s stuffed toy. “Winnie the Pooh reads good” would suggest that the book of that name is a good choice, e.g., for reading aloud.
In the OP’s scenario, the passage of writing does not itself read at all, much less well. In describing it in the aesthetic-judgment sense of “read,” what’s been described is not the skill at reading of the “natural” sense of “to read” but the auditory aesthetics of the passage in the specialized “critical” sense – and, though not a normal formal usage, it would take a predicate adjective.
The book “reads good” for the same reason as the dog smells bad. No book reads well, being inanimate objects as they are, just as only dogs which rhinopharyngeal problems smell badly. And it’s clear that the specialized sense of “to read” in which the predicate adjective is called for is being invoked by the context of the passage, as outlined in the OP.
This book is a good read. = This book reads good. 
Nouns and verbs are different parts of speech, and can’t automatically substitute for each other even when they read the same.
**Poly **nailed it. What the student meant was that the book is a “good read,” not that the book was proficient in its reading skills. So I’d say that “It reads good” is a little overly colloquial, but still better than “It reads well,” which doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
This post is a sound argument = it argues sound
Doesn’t always work.
I hate to disagree with anyone who writes this well, especially Polycarp, whose expertise in language has been demonstrated time and again here at the SDMB. But on this occasion, you’re just full of it, Poly! 
Mangetout has summed it up perfectly. Just because a book is a good read, doesn’t mean it “reads good.” I find absolutely nothing wrong with saying “Winnie the Pooh reads well,” meaning the book, not the toy. And to me, “Winnie the Pooh reads good” sounds barbaric, no matter how many erudite justifications Poly cooks up.
This is a non-standard usage of the verb “to read” - the thing being read is the subject. There is a standard usage of “to read” that is similar (“the thermometer reads 100”), but that’s a different meaning than the one in the OP. If a teacher objects to anything, I think it should be the way “to read” is used rather than the use of “good.”
Given that the usage is non-standard, is there really a way to determine whether it should take “well” or “good” in this context? If the verb means “to sound while being pronounced aloud” I would expect it to take “good.” If it means “to guide a reader in making sounds” it could take “well.”
The verb “to scan” is sometimes used in a similar way. People say, “It scans well,” meaning that a passage of text is pleasing to read.
This sounds similar to people saying:
“I/He/She did good” as opposed to “I/He/She did well”.
I always thought ‘good’ was incorrect to use, but often hear people use ‘good’ rather than ‘well’. I say ‘well’ is more proper and correct in this and your case.
“I did good” is correct, but it has an entirely different meaning (e.g. you helped an old lady cross the street).
I’m with comma (both on the substance, and in being shocked at having to disagree with polycarp). There’s often a fine line between sloppy language and flexible language, but in this case, I (humbly) opine that ‘The book reads well.’ is acceptable. There’s not always a sin in letting the meaning of a word slide a little bit, from ‘looks at print and understands it’ to ‘presents print to be understood (particularly when describing ease of understanding)’
The key for me was just adding one word to the sentence: ‘The book reads well aloud.’ sounds to my ear much better than ‘The book reads good aloud.’ and in fact I can’t think of a clearer and more concise way of getting that idea across.