[ACT Scores - April 12th scores are up!]

Yes' date=' my dd does have test anxiety. I've always heard that practicing the test at home under real test condtions helps prior to taking the test so we did that. One of the reasons I had my dd take the test this year as practice was to help her overcome her test anxiety. She also took the PSAT this year for practice. I guess my plan of attack is to bombard her with tests so that when she takes the real thing it won't be a big deal. The exception being the SAT which she may take twice, but not until she's had more practice with the ACT - since SAT reports all scores and ACT only reports the scores you want.

 

HTH.[/quote']

 

we were very pleased. He did take the writing portion, and those scores were listed as "not yet available".

 

I second what Bev said about lots of practice. My jr. son worked several practice tests from the Real ACT book and a couple of others I got at the library. After taking the PSAT twice and the SAT2 last spring, he was still a bit nervous, but not nearly as nervous as in the past.

 

His scores were good enough that we are all very relieved, and I don't plan on having him take the SAT since all the colleges he's looking at accept either the SAT or the ACT. He needs to focus the time remaining in this school year on getting the best grades possible in his courses, not on more test prep.

 

BTW, Bev, my son's Reading score in Arts/Literature was also a bit lower than his other scores, and he's a strong reader, too. I wonder if those passages were just a little tricky on this particular ACT.

 

I wouldn't be concerned unless you consistently see her score in Arts/Literature low over several practice tests. In my son's experience with the practice tests, we found that occasionally there was a passage that was particularly tricky, and it would pull his score down. On the other hand, there would occasionally be a passage that he could really relate to (one of the passages in one of the prep books was about the history of Star Trek), and his score would be higher on that one.

 

Brenda

[Celebrate with us!]

What wonderful news! Take time and celebrate!

 

Best wishes,

Brenda

[NARHS -- thinking about using this...]

and it's a pretty small operation, conducted out of part of a refurbished warehouse. I didn't see a "school" as such with students. If they have one in Maine, maybe it's separate from their office. I'd contact them and ask if you really want to know.

 

Brenda

[Does anyone succeed at this?]

My oldest is almost finished with high school (11th grade), and looking back over the journey, I can definitely see areas where I wish I could have provided him more. I wish I had had the courage to teach him Latin back in the 5th grade after pulling him from ps. At the time, it seemed like too much when he had lots of trouble with basic math. I wish I had felt that we had the time to cover logic or to use a full Geometry text (he used Saxon with integrated Geometry). At the time, it was too much to add to our already full days, and I thought focusing on writing was more important. I wish we had done more literary analysis -- the kind where one really analyzes a book and learns literary techniques. Since literature is not my strong suit, we settled for reading lots of books and writing basic essays.

 

Fast forward to now -- I do have quite a few regrets about the education ds#1 received, however, I don't regret our homeschooling journey for a minute because success in my world is not wholly defined by how much academics we covered. What my son did receive, which I think is more important, is a thorough grounding in our faith, the chance to mature emotionally outside of immense peer pressure, and a great relationship with his brother and his parents. Today, I really enjoy talking with my teen about philosophical topics, and I appreciate the insight that he has. When I look around me, I don't see too many other teens in my community who are really willing to talk to their parents on a deep level, and I really think that I have homeschooling to thank for that willingness.

 

Yes, the journey is difficult, and it must be attempted one step at a time. There are good days, and there are bad days, but what helps me to keep going is to look ahead towards the larger goals I have for our homeschool. I do hope my sons will achieve academically, but more important for me is that they grow into faithful young men with generous spirits who love their family and appreciate other people for the gifts that they have.

 

Brenda

[NARHS -- thinking about using this...]

NCAA will not accept their diploma. Yes, your student may be accepted as a student athlete, but it will be by going through the process as a homeschooler.

 

Margaret,

 

Do you have a link or other info on how to apply to the NCAA as a homeschooler? Is applying to the NCAA as a homeschooler difficult?

 

My oldest isn't interested in sports, buy my next ds (in middle school now) might be, and I'll need to make a decision about enrolling him in NARHS in a year or so.

 

TIA,

Brenda

[So how are the families with seniors doing?]

I'll second Jane's thanks for all of your help, advice, and perspective on the college search process. And thank God that your younger dd is doing well with managing the diabetes.

 

You definitely deserve a nice break!!!

 

Brenda

[NARHS -- thinking about using this...]

My son has done self-designed courses in history, English, religion, and PE. For the history ones, he has used a spine book with associated historical fiction. His grade was based on a test book that came with one spine (for one course), and on mini-research papers I had him write (for another course).

 

His English courses have included a mixture of literature, modern & classic, generally tied to the history he's studying. I've also had him do some grammar in early high school, and a writing program. His grades have been based on the tests that came with the grammar program and his grades on essays he's written about the literature books.

 

For religion, we've used a mix of things -- a basic text, and then a lot of supplemental studies thrown in. For his PE credit, he did the Boy Scout merit badges on Personal Fitness and Canoeing, along with swimming lessons.

 

You can see that we've haven't done anything too exotic, but we certainly could have.

 

HTH,

Brenda

[Financial Aid Resources for College????]

I will check into these resources. You all are so helpful in navigating this college search process!

 

Brenda

[Financial Aid Resources for College????]

require only the FAFSA and which also require the Profile form?

 

TIA,

Brenda

[Financial Aid Resources for College????]

Hi all,

 

My ds will be beginning his senior year this coming fall. I would like to learn more about how financial aid works for college. I know that we will have to file the federal form for student aid.

 

If you've gone through this process with your dc, I was wondering if you could recommend any books, websites, etc. that explain the process and provide tips for maximizing aid.

 

Any other suggestions about financial aid would be welcome!

 

TIA,

Brenda

[NARHS -- thinking about using this...]

Our adviser is located in the Maine off. We've had good experiences with the portfolio review. It's all gone very smoothly, and our adviser is responsive.

 

I've done a combination of self-designed courses and textbook courses, and that hasn't been a problem either. You do have to track the time your child spends on each subject, and you need to figure out a method for grading all your courses, even things like PE classes. The NARHS materials have been helpful and contain several different grading rubrics for various subjects.

 

We are about to go into ds's senior year, so I don't have any experience with getting official documentation from them sent to colleges.

 

HTH,

Brenda

[ACT essay tips?]

I've got the Real ACT prep guide and two others from the library (Princeton Review & Kaplan) that he is working through.

 

Personally, I found the methodology on tackling the essay to be the best in the Princeton book (p. 376-388, 2008 version). They give the student a framework and suggested outline to guide them. Although my son and I didn't think the actual student writing in the samples was that good, the suggested framework has been a big help to my son. He now understands how to organize his essay. He will be writing at least one practice essay each day this week leading up to the test.

 

I've also looked over several ACT writing prompts. Unlike the SAT prompts, which tend to be more philosophical, the ACT prompts seem to be topics facing a typical high school student. My son usually can come up with some ideas about the topic presented (e.g. school uniforms, internet filtering in the school library). We did come across the topic of eliminating study halls, though. My poor home schooled son didn't know what a study hall was. I'm am really praying (and please join me if you are so inclined) that the essay topic will be something that a homeschooled kid can relate to.

 

Also -- my son and I have been brainstorming topics that are currently "hot" in high schools so we can discuss them ahead of time. Maybe, just maybe, these discussions will help him on test day.

 

Please -- other WTM high school boarders -- share locally "hot" topic ideas here!

 

Here are some "hot" topics in my area:

 

* Should junk food be allowed in school vending machines?

 

* Should the school cafeteria be allowed to sell fattening/sugary items, like ice cream?

 

* Which is better for students -- standard class scheduling where each class meets every day or block scheduling where daily class periods are extended but classes only meet for 1 semester?

 

* Should students have to do mandatory community service to graduate from high school?

 

* Should the driving age be raised to 17?

 

 

Please share other ideas,

Brenda

[Math Questions from a newbie]

I think he'd probably do better in the ACT math, but doesn't the ACT also contain other subjects? In general, none of our family has been tempted to take the ACTs because we've better at figuring out puzzles than remembering things. Besides, here, SATs are much more common.

Thanks,

Nan

Nan,

The ACT has 4 sections -- English - which is kind of like the SAT writing part that has passages with underlined parts where you have to pick the best of 4 choices to improve the passage; Math - one hour of questions covering BTWPrealgebra, Algebra, Geometry, & very basic Trig; Reading - 4 lengthy passages you read and answer questions; and Science - where the student reads and interprets tables and graphs of scientific data. The science test is more about the ability to read and interpret the data then it is about scientific knowledge in general.

 

Also, I know the SAT is more common around here -- my son has to go to the next town over to take the test. I think the ACT is becoming more widely accepted, though, because just in casual conversation in the last few weeks, I've discovered that a friend's and also a neighbor's ps'ed children are taking the ACT next week. I figure that if colleges say that either test is acceptable, then I'll have my ds take the one on which he'll score the best. If he does well on the ACT next week, I won't have him take the SAT. BTW, I was able to get a couple of ACT prep books out of the library through ILL, so the investment in the ACT option was rather low.

 

Oh -- thanks for your post a few days ago about the cc placement testing and your son's experiences there. My son went and took that test this past week, and he was nervous going into it. I told him about your son's experience and Beth's dd's experience with college classes, and it made him relax a bit. He'll be taking a few cc classes this coming fall.

 

Brenda

[IEW - opinions please on using this program. Have you had good results with]

I am wondering how easy it is going to be to teach with this. I am not very confident when it comes to teaching writing. I

Thanks,

Tami

 

Tami,

 

I'd suggest watching the first few tapes/DVDs in the TWSS set so that you can understand the method. Pudewa goes through the teaching procedure in a lecture format and does actual exercises with the audience, so you will see how to "teach" the method -- it's not really that hard. After you watch the first couple of tapes, you can decide if you want your son to watch some parts, too. Since he's 13 yo, he would probably be able to follow along and understand the approach himself from watching the tapes.

 

I wouldn't suggest watching all the tapes/DVDs at once in the beginning, unless you have a lot of time and are interested. I think it's less confusing to watch a couple of them and then get started with the program. As your son progresses through the lessons, you can watch more TWSS to keep ahead of where he is with the actual lessons.

 

The Ancient History Based Lessons are very easy to use and are gentle at the start. They solve that problem of "I don't know what to write" or "I don't know how to get started". Once you have the basic method down, they show you some "dress ups", things like stronger verbs and interesting adjectives that make your writing sound more sophisticated. They only require you to put one or two of these in each paragraph, so the task doesn't seem that daunting, and the child can be successful from the start.

 

The introductory lesson is on interesting adjectives where the result is a couple of short poems. The plans then move into lessons where the student is taught, step by step, how to make a key-word outline from a passage. For the next several lessons, the passages are on Ancient History topics (like Egypt, Mummies, etc.) and are provided in the book. Once he's got the outlining method down, he puts away the original passage from the book, and rewrites the passage on that topic in his own words.

 

After he's practiced this outlining and paragraph writing, they introduce multi-paragraph reports. The lessons towards the end of the book have the student using his own source materials. My son used library books. Once he understood the method, this part of the course was straight forward.

 

HTH,

Brenda

[Math Questions from a newbie]

My junior (who used Terc Investigations gr. 2 - 4 in ps) has taken several practice ACT math sections and is doing much better on the math there than on the math on the SAT. He takes the real thing in a week, so we'll see if the practice tests are a good predictor of actual results.

 

Just something to consider if you think he would benefit from better standardized test scores,

Brenda

[Please pray for us --]

;

[IEW - opinions please on using this program. Have you had good results with]

with my 11 yo 6th grader. I watched the TWSS video set and then started with the Ancient History Based Writing Lessons. We have both loved IEW because the program builds a methodology slowly.

 

The history based lessons have been perfect for us because my son doesn't enjoy creative writing. I really have a hard time getting him to make up stories, for example. He loves to write about the Romans, Medieval battles, etc.

 

There haven't been any negatives for us yet, but I am curious to see how my son will do in a year or two after we've used IEW.

 

HTH,

Brenda

[Ideas for leadership opportunities for high schoolers...]

also participate in scouting, and one of them has just made Eagle scout. Boy scouting is a great program to learn leadership skills. One son is also a peer minister at church -- he leads activities for the younger high schoolers.

 

HTH,

Brenda

[I am starting to worry about Saxon for Algebra...]

Are there dark clouds on the horizon? Do I need to have a backup plan in place?

 

Thanks for your insight!

 

I think it really depends on your student. I had one go through Saxon from Math 65 through the first half of Advanced Math before I knew he was really having troubles in the application. Saxon was a great fit for him because he needed a lot of practice to cement concepts. While he did pretty well with Algebra 1 & 2, he struggled in Advanced Math because the concepts taught there are much more abstract than those covered in the earlier Algebra books.

 

After completing half of Advanced Math last year, I put him in Aleks over the summer. He only tested about half way through Algebra 2, and he had trouble with the application problems. I looked for a new program at that time, and he is using Chalkdust PreCalc now. It's a better fit for him because he is very visual, and Chalkdust PreCalc makes heavy use of the graphing calculator, which Saxon does not. Seeing functions and their graphs really helped him understand the underlying concepts. He also enjoys that Chalkdust has quite a few real world application problems at the end of each problem set. For this child, it's important to see what learning this complex math will help him do in the future.

 

Am I unhappy that he used Saxon for all those years -- not really. We probably should have switched a bit earlier, but I am thankful that the repetition of Saxon really helped him to nail the mechanics of Algebra.

 

I have a younger son who is using Math 87 this year after using Singapore 1-6. He is doing much better with Saxon than my other son, and I can see that he would probably do fine with the upper level Saxon books. He's more of a math-intuitive naturally, and he doesn't seem to have trouble applying the knowledge. I'm not sure what I'll have him use for Algebra yet.

 

I guess my advice would be similar to that of the last poster. If you and your son like Saxon, then keep using it. You might, however, check how he's doing with applications problems by trying something like Aleks periodically or over the summer. Like a lot of things, I'd take the selection of math books on a year to year basis.

 

HTH,

Brenda

[For parents of soon to be high schoolers about photo IDs...]

Just a note about photo IDs --

 

We had to scramble last year to come up with a photo ID for my 15 yo when he needed to take an SAT test because my state doesn't give state-issued photo IDs to those under 16 yo. The College Board has pretty specific rules for what they accept for photo IDs on their website, so it's a good idea to check ahead.

 

We have since gotten him a passport that has served that purpose, but the application processing time for passports is quite long.

 

So, if you think your young high schooler will need an ID for standardized testing, you might want to plan to get one sooner rather than later!

 

HTH,

Brenda

[Physics recommendations?]

She compared the two texts on the basis of clarity and the humor of the author, and her freshman text won. That text even references my dd's FAVORITE unit -- furlongs / fortnight!

 

Does anyone else have a favorite unit?

 

Gwen,

 

Was one of the authors on your dd's freshman book Hugh Young? I ask because I had him for college physics many years ago, and he used to put constants on the tests in units of furlongs/fortnight to throw people off track.

 

Thanks for that trip down memory lane!

Brenda

[Physics recommendations?]

What is that title? :001_smile:

Karen

 

The title is "Physics". The author is Giancoli. We have the 6th edition text, ISBN 0-13-184661-2.

 

HTH,

Brenda

[Modern (WWII-present) lit]

he enjoyed Fallen Angels (on Vietnam), Alas Babylon (about a nuclear holocaust), and Kite Runner (modern Afghanistan). He also previously read Cry, The Beloved Country and enjoyed that, too. Not sure these would be on the list of Great Books, but we both enjoyed them and the discussions we had over them.

 

HTH,

Brenda

[May I boast? National Latin Exam award arrives!]

;

[Back to dual enrollment (CC vs. univ), AP, etc.]

I'm wondering how the AP scores are reported to the colleges since the AP tests are administered through the College Board (the SAT folks). When you have an SAT score report sent to a college, does that report also include any AP tests your child has taken? If so, poor AP scores might be a liability in the college admissions process.

 

Also -- I would assume that all AP scores received by a student are reported when a score report is ordered. I wonder how a college would look upon an AP score report with a 4 or 5 in some subject areas and lower scores in other subject areas? The AP tests seem pretty high-stakes to me unless you are fairly confident that your child will score well.

 

I've personally decided against AP tests for my 11th grade son. He's taking some AP level courses and doing well, but he does not tend to test well in time-pressure situations that cover lots & lots of material.

 

I think the AP program is a great opportunity for some students, but it is really not realistic of how a college-level course would be graded. A college student taking a 1 semester course would have several exams and possibly a mid-term and final as a basis for their grade for a course that is about 4 months in duration. The AP exams are a single two to three-hour exam that covers nine months of material in a single sitting.

 

If you think your child would do well with the AP format -- go for it, but I don't think it's the best route for all college-bound students. My son is using on-line courses and will take cc courses his senior year to show his ability to work at the college level.

 

I also agree with what Virgina Dawn said. If you hope to transfer cc credits, sometimes it's better to take courses outside of your eventual major at the cc. The couple of colleges we've look into so far will accept a limited number of transfer credits from cc.

 

HTH,

Brenda