Friday, February 20, 2009
Preparing for the SAT and ACT in Grade School
I know that sounds funny, but what can you do to prepare your children for a high school standardized test in grade school?
Here's what I've learned:
1. The SAT and ACT are *not* the be all and end all tests to show what your child can or can't do. However, they are almost universally accepted by colleges and universities and they will rate your children based on these tests.
2. Both tests require a LOT of reading. Preparing your children to be good readers in grade school will, indeed, help them in high school, and of course, college.
3. Both tests really test Language Arts heavily. Reading, writing, comprehension, mechanics. Where do the commas go? How to correctly punctuate. Careful reading and understand of a passage they've never seen before. If things have to slide in grade school for whatever reason, don't ever let Language Arts slide. Always do it. And always do...
4. Math is also tested heavily. In fact, for the SAT, only Language Arts and Math are tested. So, in grade school, the two subjects that should be done every day, regardless, are Language Arts and Math.
The ACT tests Science, and naturally, science is important, too. However, they will test general knowledge and abstracting facts from the provided information much more than actual memorized scientific data. So again, reading comprehension is important for science, too.
Both tests last over 3 hours, and that's 3 hours of solid reading. So being a strong reader is really most of the battle for these standardized tests.
So, here is my grade school plan for you:
•Read to your child every day.
•Have you child read to you every day.
•Do language arts stuff every day: grammar, mechanics, comprehension, writing, etc.
•Do math every day.
That's it. If you have as a goal to make your child a strong reader, they will most likely do very well on both the ACT or SAT.
Here's what I've learned:
1. The SAT and ACT are *not* the be all and end all tests to show what your child can or can't do. However, they are almost universally accepted by colleges and universities and they will rate your children based on these tests.
2. Both tests require a LOT of reading. Preparing your children to be good readers in grade school will, indeed, help them in high school, and of course, college.
3. Both tests really test Language Arts heavily. Reading, writing, comprehension, mechanics. Where do the commas go? How to correctly punctuate. Careful reading and understand of a passage they've never seen before. If things have to slide in grade school for whatever reason, don't ever let Language Arts slide. Always do it. And always do...
4. Math is also tested heavily. In fact, for the SAT, only Language Arts and Math are tested. So, in grade school, the two subjects that should be done every day, regardless, are Language Arts and Math.
The ACT tests Science, and naturally, science is important, too. However, they will test general knowledge and abstracting facts from the provided information much more than actual memorized scientific data. So again, reading comprehension is important for science, too.
Both tests last over 3 hours, and that's 3 hours of solid reading. So being a strong reader is really most of the battle for these standardized tests.
So, here is my grade school plan for you:
•Read to your child every day.
•Have you child read to you every day.
•Do language arts stuff every day: grammar, mechanics, comprehension, writing, etc.
•Do math every day.
That's it. If you have as a goal to make your child a strong reader, they will most likely do very well on both the ACT or SAT.
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