Think about it. When your child takes a test in a class, the expectation is that they’ll have learned what they need to know in order to take that test. The same is true with county-wide testing. Ditto for AP tests. So, why do tests like the PSAT and SAT cause so much concern?
What’s on the SAT
The SAT has two parts: Verbal and Math. The questions change from one year to the next and this year, the SAT has gone digital and changed the type of material in some sections, but the overall idea is to test a student’s knowledge in areas they have been studying during their academic career. This is a shakey assumption since not all school systems do an equal job of covering material – something I can attest to as a result of having moved often as a kid. However, that’s the idea behind the test. Think of it as a giant AP test of sorts.
Preparing for the SAT
You can wait until your child enters high school to start PSAT/SAT prep, but wouldn’t it make more sense to track your child’s progress in the skills required to do well on the test? Not just because the test is looming but also because you want your kid to be able to write well; read with comprehension; and use semicolons, commas, and all the other grammatical things that trip us up? To expect to study for a few months to cover everything they’ll need to know is asking a lot.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to ensure that your kid is learning what they need to know along the way by looking at the school’s curriculum and tracking their progress, or by using grade-specific workbooks from educational publishers like Evan-Moor to ensure they’ve learned what they need at the end of each semester? There is no reason that a kid with a firm grasp of Language Arts has to wait until SAT test prep to discover the secrets of good writing and reading comprehension. They should be learning as they advance through school.
How You Can Help
Because I missed a lot by moving so often – between states and school systems within states, too – and played catch-up with my own education, I was adamant that my kids were going to learn it as they went along. I started KidWrite! as a way to make sure that other kids had that same oversight. It’s for that purpose that I blog about grammar, reading comprehension, and vocabulary – and identify resources for you to use. We’re getting used to our new online home, but the theory is the same: starting with the basics provides an essential, firm, foundation. The result we have seen over the years are kids who are confident writers, word lovers, and avid readers.
Getting Started
- Look through our site for kid- and family-friendly Language Arts activities.
- Contact us if you have a question about where to begin.
- Help your child learn structure – in whatever language you like – for a story by asking them about their day and showing them the progress from start to finish.
- Make up stories when you’re driving by prompting them with my very favorite words: Once Upon a Time.
- Read to them, have them listen to audiobooks, and make a 30-minute time each week when the entire family is reading something — magazines, articles printed from the web, books, whatever works.
- Be sure they know how to turn a prompt into an opening sentence.
- Be sure they know how to write a basic paragraph.
- When your kid says something is very x or sort of y, that’s your clue that there is a word for that. Check out a Children’s Thesaurus and play a game with the words.
- Use movies you watch as a family to talk about narrative structure, character development, plot — it doesn’t always need to be a book.
- Have fun with Language Arts! Make a puppet show, write some stories, play word games. The more you do, the more your kids benefit.
Bottom Line
The assessment tests we all take are nerve-wracking for sure. They are also supposed to measure what we already know. When it comes to Language Arts, make sure you are filling in the gaps as they go; it will serve them well for more than assessment tests.