SAT Verbal

[DocMom]

IEW has been great for grammar and writing, but I want to supplement with a) more literature b) reading comprehension. DS has been taking the practice SAT and he has been stuck in the 600s for a while now. I am not sure how to diagnose his weakness or what to supplement it to help him improve. Suggestions by others who have gone through this?

 

I am not looking for princeton review type help. My goal is not to teach the test to him - I think if I give him the right skills through coursework, his score will improve naturally. Am I wrong? Should I think of this like the Math section where it really is a learned test taking skill?

[luuknam]

I don't know about the current SAT (I took it once, in Jan 2005, which was the last of the 'old' SAT, whichever 'old' that is, since I think they've changed it twice since then?), but imo you'd have to look at the questions he missed, and try to figure out why he missed those questions. Like, on one of the practice tests, I missed some analogy because I was something to do with an oar and a rudder or something, and I didn't know for sure what an oar was (I knew it had something to do with a boat... but English is not my first language). Which basically is an entirely different problem than if I'd missed it because I made the wrong comparison despite knowing exactly what an oar is. I think they got rid of analogies since then, but that doesn't matter as far as my point is concerned - in order to know what to improve, you'd need to know where and why he makes mistakes.

 

Test prep can help, but you need strong reading comprehension and vocabulary. If he hasn't learned any Latin, doing a prefixes/suffixes/roots program could be helpful (could still be helpful even with Latin, as Greek pre/suffixes and roots would be useful too). 

Edited April 10, 2017 by luuknam

[MrSmith]

IEW has been great for grammar and writing, but I want to supplement with a) more literature b) reading comprehension. DS has been taking the practice SAT and he has been stuck in the 600s for a while now. I am not sure how to diagnose his weakness or what to supplement it to help him improve. Suggestions by others who have gone through this?

 

I am not looking for princeton review type help. My goal is not to teach the test to him - I think if I give him the right skills through coursework, his score will improve naturally. Am I wrong? Should I think of this like the Math section where it really is a learned test taking skill?

The practice tests from CB break down the questions into various topics. Have you been able to use that for more directed instruction?

[Gratia271]

IEW has been great for grammar and writing, but I want to supplement with a) more literature b) reading comprehension. DS has been taking the practice SAT and he has been stuck in the 600s for a while now. I am not sure how to diagnose his weakness or what to supplement it to help him improve. Suggestions by others who have gone through this?

 

I am not looking for princeton review type help. My goal is not to teach the test to him - I think if I give him the right skills through coursework, his score will improve naturally. Am I wrong? Should I think of this like the Math section where it really is a learned test taking skill?

 

I agree with others about reading comprehension ability being crucial.  When my kids took SAT in middle school, we dialogued through questions on the different reading passages, and I made them explain their reasoning for their answers.  As an attorney by training, they have grown up in a world from their earliest years where we discuss "why" at least as much as "what" so that goes a long way to help promote these abilities.  Reading as much as possible at the highest level possible in terms of fiction and nonfiction along with discussion is crucial, beginning as early as your student is willing.

 

Every student is different and progresses at different paces with reading comprehension and rhetorical skills.  My biological kids were not only primed for this from their mom's background but also have grown up in a world with me where the "skills" to be developed were implicit in their daily lives from their earliest years.  While they did practice with some real tests, the reason they achieved perfect scores on SAT in middle school had far more to do with their environment/culture than the practice tests IMO.