One of the things we do at KidWrite is prepare kids for the SAT. When we work with kids in Language Arts before high school, our focus on grammar and vocabulary is the first step to this eventual prep, BECAUSE, whether or not kids take the SAT, the skills tested on the SAT are skills an educated individual will need in life. When kids arrive while already in high school, our hands-down favorite workbooks are those I’ve mentioned before (SAT Grammar and SAT Reading). With these books, they get a thorough review of what we’ve been teaching all along.
A Robust Vocabulary
BUT – vocabulary is always a sticking point. For a variety of reasons that largely trace back to a lack of reading complete physical texts on a regular basis, even kids from excellent public schools lack the vocabulary they need for reading comprehension and word substitution questions. You could say that it’s not a problem because that’s not real life, but the truth is that being able to read “hard” words is a daily part of adult life. So, how do high school kids get that vocabulary quickly?
Getting That Vocabulary
We could have the kids memorize a box of flashcards, but, in our experience, very few of them actually do this on their own. We could give them worksheets and pop quizzes, and we’ve had some success. We could have them take practice tests, however, once they miss a number of those answers because they don’t understand what they’re reading, the kids are in a panic. Since we’re not here to freak the kids out, we’ve developed a vocabulary program called Word Work.
Vocabulary Work
I’ve written before about our Word Work Category approach to vocabulary acquisition. It’s not perfect by any means, but it is a way to get kids of all ages a solid start for reading comprehension. To facilitate this learning, we’re creating a series of word games for younger kids that may not make it fun, but will most certainly make it easier to learn the words. I’ll be posting about them as they are ready.
For our SAT kids, we’ve created word games to accompany the SAT Grammar and SAT Reading workbooks. The sample below is based on page 13 of SAT Grammar. It’s focused on the fourth column, transition words that express the concept of Contradict – aka on the other hand.
Sample SAT Word Game
more – Test Prep