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| Mel Levine's A Mind At A Time and The Myth of Laziness are terrific books dealing with alternative learning styles. It is really important, I think, to realize that a lot of students are trying the best they can. When we develop learning styles that honor their strengths, they engage and commit. New York Magazine's "How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The Inverse Power of Praise" is dynamite. Basically, praise effort, not skill. Levenger ruled pads and loose-leaf notepaper are marvelous. They work almost like training wheels for young scholars, helping organize notes and create a place to identify key points. The Organized Student is a terrific book, that is especially helpful for parents wanting to guide a student's transition from elementary school to middle school or middle school to high school. Every ACT student should get The Real ACT Prep Guide. Unfortunately, it only has 3 practice tests so use these sparingly and get an additional book, like McGraw-Hill's 10 ACT Practice Tests. I have copies of old, out of print practice tests you can borrow them for additional practice. (The library has the most recent.) Every SAT student should get The Official Study Guide. If you are scoring above 700 on any section, I recommend Kaplan's SAT 2400. It focuses on the hardest problems and strategies, but you must also use a plethora of regular practice tests so you don't lose your edge on the easier problems. If you are taking the SAT II get The Official Study Guide for the SAT II tests and one of the study books (I prefer Princeton Review, as they are a little more irreverent and I think the tone is better for many students. Kaplan's makes a good addition so that you have more practice tests, but there is no need to go through the content of both.) Also, borrow the out of print SAT subject test book from me or the library. Vocabulary work is absolutely essential to SAT prep and college preparation. It is the single SAT skill that everyone will use after the SAT. I recommend the following: Keep track of all words you don't know in all your work. Look them up, write them down and use them! (The NY Times webpage has a great function-- double-click on any word you don't know and a pop-up screen will give you the definition. You can even click on a little sound button (to the right of the word--it looks like a blue speaker) to hear the word said out loud. Read the NY Times every day, and use the new words you learn!) Also www.freerice.com has a good formula for determining your vocab level so you get a mix of words you do and don't know. And, for every word you correctly identify, you donate 20 grains of rice to the UN World Food Fund. Unfortunately, the answers are only 1 word, so unless you are willing to look up words you don't know, it is of limited use. For Fun: Some of these contain adult language or innuendo. The one that concerns me the most is Princeton Review's "Snakes on a Plane." Two beeps are defined as "Matriarchal-copulating," "Taboo-procreating" and "Oedipal." Any student listening to the song who doesn't already know what those beeps mean, will ask. I can work around parental concerns about adult language. However, songs avoiding risqué examples tend to be more boring. These are witty and fun, making it much easier to learn vocab words. In my experience, New Yorkers old enough to study for the SAT probably know the tagline of the movie. For Etymology, check out Norman Lewis' Word Power Made Easy. (You can skip this if you've had Latin.) Also get a good list of word prefixes and suffixes. (I will provide that for my students.) Finally: you need an SAT vocab list. Look through the test prep books and find the longest list you will realistically learn. (I will provide one for my students.) (As a side note, the Kaplan SAT Games for the iPod are dreadful--please don't use them! Unless you have a way of writing on your iPod screen, it will reinforce passive approaches and bad habits.) |
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Send mail to alisa@CreativeTestingStrategies.com with questions or comments. |
