Second Time Around Posted April 8, 2012 Share Posted April 8, 2012 While I'm not dyslexic, as an English major I have still struggled with timed examination essays all my life, and the SAT essay seems to take the biscuit! I have bought my son an SAT essay prep guide, but it is still an almost impossibility for him to complete an essay, free from spelling and grammatical errors, in such a short time. Any tips about how to approach this, since I'm really not able to help him much with this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barbara H Posted April 8, 2012 Share Posted April 8, 2012 Just a clarification, is your son dyslexic or slow with writing? A few ideas. 1. The essay is actually just a third of the writing score. So, he may want to focus more energy on really knowing grammar inside and out so he gets the overall writing score up so the essay carries less weight. 2. Take the ACT instead. The essay is optional (though some schools will require it - he could check what the colleges he's considering require). 3. Try to figure out if what is slowing him down is the prep for writing or the writing itself. If it is the prep time, it may work to go through sample topics and do just the prep and not the writing. By that I mean pick a position, think of support examples, write a topic sentence and repeat. There are may places online that have examples. We found this strategy worked well to help our son get faster. 4. Maybe try an online class. Write at Home has a course. There http://blog.writeathome.com/index.php/category/sat-essay-prep/are some articles about the strategy on their blog. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Second Time Around Posted April 8, 2012 Author Share Posted April 8, 2012 Thanks, Barbara! He is dyslexic. His spelling is remedial rather than automatic - give him enough time and he can go back over his first draft and catch most of his mistakes. There isn't time for that in the SAT. He is fairly solid with grammar (but again, a second draft at writing will pick up some errors). I will look at your suggestions and try to apply all that work. I know for me, my English teacher was in despair (I grew up in England and so had a longer time to write exam essays, but the exam score summed up our entire high school experience - no such thing as continuous assessment etc). I was the best at English in my class, and yet it took approximately a year for me to get to the point where I didn't flunk the essay part of the English exam. I just had to write essay, after essay, after essay. Until I'd devised my own internal formula. But that is hard for me to 'teach' to my son who is less strong in English than I was at the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tex-mex Posted April 8, 2012 Share Posted April 8, 2012 If he has an official dx from a doctor or Neuropsychologist, you can request extended time for the test. You will need a recent test -- no older than 3 years old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vida Winter Posted April 8, 2012 Share Posted April 8, 2012 Bravewriter has an excellent SAT essay prep course, about a month long. They start off with untimed essays but quickly ramp up. Before dd took the course, I had no idea what the SAT essay was about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Second Time Around Posted April 29, 2012 Author Share Posted April 29, 2012 Thanks for the suggestions! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.