If your dc scored very high on the SAT Critical Reading...

[Jane Elliot]

....to what do you attribute their high score? (ETA: I'm specifically wondering about the passage-based questions. We always do well on the sentence completion part.)

 

I'm just curious. My dc always score highest on writing and I give R&S credit for that. I'm just wondering if there's a curriculum out there that gives the same kind of success on the critical reading section.

Edited May 25, 2010 by Luann in ID

[Susan C.]

My ds scored 150 points higher on critical reading than math. For us, what that ended up meaning was that he is creative and language based. He did try a math/science course at college, but it was a disaster. He is now an English major. When I homeschooled him, he devoured books and loved literature. Funny, he didn't even write one paper until 10th grade, and it was like pulling teeth to get him to write. But, when the papers were finished, they were great!

 

PS: His highest score was writing on SAT. We used a combo of A Beka and BJU for Writing/Grammar.

[CO MOM]

My dd has always done well on the reading/writing parts of tests, and primarily she just did a lot of reading - not really any reading comprehension curriculum per se (we tried, but they never went very well!). We have always used some sort of literature based history, so she has read many of the "great books." In her junior year, she took the AP Language and Composition class (through PA Homeschoolers), and after that took the SAT and did very well (800). This was higher than her PSAT critical reading scores taken the previous year, so I would attribute that to the AP class. Her writing score was high, too, but unfortunately most schools don't count that part! I think mostly a combination of reading a variety of types of literature (don't forget non-fiction), discussing, and then writing about it would be the best preparation.

[In The Great White North]

Ds scored high on the critical reading (way higher than the writing) and attributed it his interest in politics and reading political articles, news reports and blogs.

 

It certainly wasn't from his (nonexistent) love of reading literature!

[TravelingChris]

Well we don't do the SAT but my dd scored very high on the reading portion of the ACT. I simply attribute it to her vast reading of many kinds of materials including things like court cases, scholarly articles, and many kinds of books.

[Cedarmom]

Omnibus/WEM

 

I credit it to the reading and discussing the books. I also credit it to the things we did in the logic stage such as narration,outlining, and summaries.

[vmsurbat]

Well, two of my children (dd, ds) scored a perfect 800 on the Critical Reading section. They are light-years apart in terms of personality, interests, love of reading, etc. I personally was surprised at their high scores because we definitely do NOT teach to the test.

 

So, I attribute their good scores to the following:

 

0. Being good test takers. Some kids are, and some aren't. That's just how it is.....

 

1. Reading intensive lifestyle--starting from read-alouds as babies, and a semi-literature approach to history. We have done almost NO reading workbooks (eg. think of the workbooks that go with BJU reading, for example). We have mostly just read and (minimally) discussed some of their readings.

 

2. Continued vocabulary study throughout high school. We don't start a vocab program until 7th grade or so and then every child takes a small part of each day to work on a vocab program-when they finish one workbook, they start another. I also foster a love of words--we use the dictionary at least once most days.....

 

3. Specific SAT prep beginning a couple of months before the SAT. I've successfully used the one put out by The College Board people. I've recently heard of a website dedicated to test prep--specifically the SAT and GRE which looks worthwhile to investigate further. It can be found here: http://www.majortests.com/

 

HTH,

[mooooom]

I read to my kids for hours a day, starting from about two years old (before then, picture books). I think you develop very good concentration skills not to mention "follow along" skills. They also have no trouble following classroom type lectures, whereas I, who was an early reader and didn't like to be read to (took too long - I could read it myself much faster) can not STAND to sit through a lecture - my mind can't stay in one place that long.

[Tullia]

1. Reading a wide variety of books starting with read-alouds during infancy--we didn't stop when ds learned to read on his own and continued reading aloud through high school.

2. Discussing the books we read.

3. Using Classical Writing (it's more than just about writing essays)

[J-rap]

...

Edited September 7, 2023 by J-rap

[Jane Elliot]

Thanks for the discussion everybody!

[emubird]

Lots of reading -- classics, junk books, wikipedia, news articles on the web, magazines, etc.

 

We still read out loud. We don't get very far at each sitting because we're always stopping to discuss and end up tangenting off here and there.

 

We discuss everything. It's not my choice. The kids are very interested in talking things through.

 

I talk too much and use words that are way too big for their understanding. They've just had to keep up.

 

My older daughter scored way better on her language scores than her math. This doesn't mean she's bad at math (she's one of those top students you see in math/science classes in college). It just means she's a lot slower at it. Which, counterintuitively, is a very good thing. It's what makes her a good student in math. She actually thinks about things rather than just scribbling down whatever comes to mind first.

 

We've also talked a lot about test taking strategies.

 

We've never used any formal curriculum for language studies. I kept meaning to, but we never got around to it because there were always too many books to read.

[TerriMI]

1) Reading _lots_ of books and articles including "hard" books, some Great Books, classic books such as ones by Chesterton and Doyle.

 

2) Learning to precis books and articles.

 

3) Knowing how to read fast and how and when to read slowly.

 

4) Sentence diagramming