justkeepswimming Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 Background first: DD is bright, but a slow reader/comprehender. She has been like this her entire life and we've structured most of her homeschooling around that fact and it's just never seemed to be an issue. We've NOT done regular standardized testing throughout her school years (a decision I woefully regret because this problem did not become apparent until it really mattered). She is a rising senior and has taken the ACT one time, where she earned a strong score, but is taking it one or two more times (Sept & Oct) to improve as much as she can. On a whim (trying to see if her score was due to lack of knowledge in some areas, or simply running out of time)... I had dd take a practice ACT, allowing 10 or 15 minutes more per section. ------- She scored nearly a perfect score in every single section. :huh: So, after this experiment, it appears it's a time thing. She needs to speed up by September!! :driving: Mainly hoping for tips for speeding up the Math (she's rusty on Algebra... almost any problem she missed were in this category & she ran out of time on the test) and on the dreaded (for a slow reader) Reading Section. Drill/review books or online sources? I did buy an ACT Math-specific book she's worked through to review the Algebra, so I think she'll be better on that come September, but want to continue practice/drilling because I'm sure that Calc will drive all of that right out of her head come August! :blink: (and I feel kind of bratty asking/fretting because her original score is a solid score, but, dd NEEDS a scholarship & a generous one at that. Period. So, "good" isn't quite good enough... she needs a couple/few more points before we can relax. And meanwhile, she watches her more affluent and/or only children friends being finished with ACT testing with considerably lower scores than her own, never taking any AP classes, and focused on totally relaxing and having easy senior years. They're all applying to big university schools with high acceptance rates and the parents/grandparents funds for each of them is... generous. They are very fortunate, and yet, don't seem to realize it, so they keep nudging her about why isn't she finished/happy yet with her scores and nagging her about working too hard... :/ Blurehgalkdjlkjga! It's amazing how many different PATHS there are to the same education. lol) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mumto2 Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 We recently did our first batch of ACT testing also. We found the Barron's books really helpful. Both had some good prep material/advice and the practice exams were harder then the actual according to the dc's. I really liked the math section in the Barrons book. Their exam day was a bit of a disaster...power outage, so started the test sitting by windows (we live a distance from the test site, they elected to test)then a science graph dd had never seen which upset her. The whole day was just a bit off kilter unfortunately. They still got the scores they needed, just not the 36 dd really wanted. Ds had timing issues at the beginning of our test prep ( also a slow reader) and after going through the books finished with a few minutes to check in each section. I think practice is the key to gaining speed. Also I would check your library for any prep books with sample exams and start doing timed tests for practice. Not necessarily the whole exam because finding that large a block of time is hard but a section or two when possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justkeepswimming Posted July 21, 2015 Author Share Posted July 21, 2015 I think practice is the key to gaining speed. Also I would check your library for any prep books with sample exams and start doing timed tests for practice. Not necessarily the whole exam because finding that large a block of time is hard but a section or two when possible. ITA about practice=speed, but we usually do the whole test at one time, which hampers said practice. I TOTALLY hadn't thought to give her timed tests by just a section or two at a time. We could fit a LOT more practice in if she doesn't have to wipe out a big block of time each day. This is why I love this forum! So many ideas that my brain is too set in its ways to think of on its own!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 I agree with that advice :) My kids practice for any standardized test by (1) doing a section or two at a time, untimed, analyzing all mistakes; (2) doing a section or two, timed; (3) adding more sections; until they (4) take entire practice tests under test conditions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 I have a couple of extremely gifted kids who are equally slow readers. This is what I have done to help improve reading speed and endurance. They practice speed reading. First have them read normally for 10 mins. Count the words. That is their starting measure. Then they start off reading as fast as they can while still comprehending for 1 minute. They stop and "re-tell" what they read. (You have to ensure comprehension is being maintained.) They repeat the process 10x. (Count the number of words read.) They need to practice that for several days. Once their speed starts to increase, you move to 3 minute re-tells, then on to 5 min. Once their 5 min re tells are consistent (fast pace and accurate comprehension), we move to reading entire passages with that strategy. Then you need to move to endurance level for the 3hr exam. Good luck. Fwiw, my slowest reader always crashed and burned during the SR section. Always. He couldn't maintain the pace. The SAT was a much better fit and his SAT score was significantly higher than his ACT. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kendall Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 My child that didn't finish 10 of the ACT math didn't have any trouble finishing the SAT math. For math speed I went through each and every problem with him for most of the practice tests. We talked about how to do each problem faster(if he wasn't already quick at it) I talked about it a little more here. But then when he took the ACT he didn't move on from a few harder problems quickly enough. So drill into their heads not to spend too much time before moving on. You can always go back http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/552186-sat-and-act-prep-with-3-weeks-to-go/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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