Ever planned your English credit around SAT Prep?

[jamajo]

I am thinking of doing this but not sure how to schedule it daily for maximum effectiveness.  Anyone ever done this can offer me any suggestions?

[regentrude]

Wouldn't that be incredibly boring? And missing a lot of skills? I can't imagine it is possible to center an entire English credit around the extremely limited facets of English that are on the SAT.

And conversely, a good English course with lots of great literature is in itself an excellent SAT preparation.

 

I am confused as to how you envision your course.

[ks-sunflower]

Erica's Meltzer's  SAT Prep book "The Critical Reader" could be used as a general "reading strategies" book over a period of several months or even two semesters; It's an excellent guide to the specifics of the SAT CR test. But the WTM has great suggestions for rigorous reading and writing in literature, history, and the humanities which provide excellent prep for the SAT CR and Writing.

[Julie of KY]

I had a one semester course in high school (in addition to my English class) that was SAT vocabulary. It wasn't my choice, but I did learn a lot of vocab useful for the SAT. I don't plan to repeat this course with my kids - I think there are better ways to teach the same thing.

 

I plan to teach grammar, literature and writing. We'll do some SAT practice tests and target some specific areas if needed. I think a good well-rounded education will take the student farther in the long run.

[Candid]

I'm afraid my first response is "Good Lord, NO!!" 

 

If you want to add on a vocabulary prep piece, fine, but plan around that, no! A thousand times no!

 

Okay, enough of the melodrama, I don't think this is a great idea on a number of fronts. But more importantly, I'm also pretty sure that studies will show that students who learn both vocabulary and reading comprehension the natural way through reading do better on the SAT. So study literature instead. 

[jamajo]

I hear you guys and thank you for your candor.  We did MFW WHL for 9th grade and Lightning Lit for 10th grade which included reading good literature and writing papers which I outsourced grading to someone hear on these boards.  Currently, my 11th grader is working on the research paper she never completed as part of MFW WHL and I see that her ability to organize this paper around a thesis and good topic sentences is great but she lacks a strong foundation in grammar to include goog sentence structure.  I can see this being a hindrance with PSAT/SAT which are coming up.

 

My approach to fixing these weaknesses have focused on teaching grammar topics as it related to her paper writing - showing her through example better word choices, parrallelism, etc.  I just don't think its been enough.  I've given her 6 weeks to complete her current research paper which thereafter I was going to have her do Part 2 of the Lightning Lit course but instead I was thinking of maybe planning out 6 weeks of pure SAT prep in the Language Arts portion only

 

Thanks!. 

 

Perhaps with this explanation you guys have some suggestions or agree that my plan may be a good one.

[kiana]

I think that a few weeks of concentrated grammar and sentence structure study would be entirely reasonable. I just wouldn't fixate it around the SAT.

[Kareni]

Erica Meltzer's  SAT Prep book "The Critical Reader" ...

 

I was unaware of The Critical Reader; thanks for mentioning it.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[regentrude]

a few weeks of focused SAT prep certainly make sense. We did some concentrated prep (but, like Margaret says, the best preparation were years of reading). Btw, we never did any formal grammar; it is not necessary for SAT success.

 

[Candid]

I think that a few weeks of concentrated grammar and sentence structure study would be entirely reasonable. I just wouldn't fixate it around the SAT.

 

 

a few weeks of focused SAT prep certainly make sense. We did some concentrated prep (but, like Margaret says, the best preparation were years of reading). Btw, we never did any formal grammar; it is not necessary for SAT success.

 

 

:iagree:

 

What you might consider doing is inter spacing this time with studies or writing. You could even have her write specifically with whatever skills she studied the previous week. I think that would cement the skills you are trying to build better than one six week chunk, but I understand if you have a test date already signed up for this might be a problem. 

[Crimson Wife]

Sadlier-Oxford's "Grammar and Writing for Standardized Tests" and "Vocabulary Workshop" books are good for SAT prep but I wouldn't personally do ONLY test prep as an English course. Maybe 3 days per week and have the other 2 be something a bit more engaging.