Debbie Stier's Blog

Another year means another reading list. Yay!

…Okay, so maybe you don’t enjoy school books as much as I do. Regardless, discerning reading material is essential for optimal comprehension. Below are some tips for reading critically that go beyond the SAT.

First things first, for short passages and nonfiction literature, identify the main point (= opinion = position = central claim = thesis), and then skim the rest (read topic sentences) to see how author supports the idea.
For fiction, separate the main idea from the details. Boil down the main idea into a few, easily remembered words.
For all school books, flip through when you get them (even before you are assigned to read), and get the lay of the land.
Then, look for the book’s main idea signposts:

— The title — tells you the main theme — what it’s about / not about.

— Table of contents — tells you the grand plan and ultimate goal, broken down in steps. This is a skeleton of the book. Notice relationships between the chapters and where you will be starting and ending (just like we did for the articles).

— The index — major topics in book, arranged alphabetically. Good for referring to when you want to find something specific (for example, fractions).

— Introduction — personal message from the author that tells why the book should be important to you.

Once you are assigned to read the book, preview the chapter, honing in on those particular page’s signposts, then read for main idea + supporting details:

Specific chapter signposts:

— Chapter title

— Section headings

— Paragraph heads

— Introductory paragraphs

— Summary paragraphs (the end)

— Topic sentences

— Illustrations

— Margin titles

Lastly, assuming you’ll receive papers throughout the reading, write outlines! Outlines are your best friend. Always write them — for papers, studying, etc. Trust me…You will have a lot easier a time with everything if you organize yourself from the get-go.

The post Back to School Series: Reading appeared first on Perfect Score Project.

 

Taking full, timed practice tests is an essential ingredient to prepare for the ACT or SAT. What do you need to take a practice test?

College Board Practice Tests:

The College Board has released 4 practice tests for the new 2016 SAT.

Click here to download each of the tests along with corresponding answer sheets, question explanations, and practice essays.
Click here for a thorough scoring calculator.
Click here for extra SAT Bubble Sheets.
Click here for extra SAT Essay Paper.

The College Board has also posted it’s official PSAT.

PSAT
Bubble Sheet
Solutions

What Else You’ll Need:

Texas Instruments TI-84 Plus Graphics Calculator for your calculator permitted math section.
Lots and lots of #2 pencils.
An analogue watch that you can turn to the top of the hour each section in order to keep your own time (this is critical).
Oh, and click here for my favorite SAT snacks!

These Might Help Too:

How to Skim Effectively
Tips to Reduce Test Anxiety

The post Practice SAT Toolbox appeared first on Perfect Score Project.

Some of these books may be out of print, but the used editions are worth every penny!

The Official SAT Study Guide (2016 Edition)
The New Math SAT Game Plan: For 2016 and Beyond!
Direct Hits Core Vocabulary of the SAT
Direct Hits Toughest Vocabulary
Vocabulary Workshop Level G
Vocabulary Workshop Level H
How to Double Your Child’s Grades in School (Best book to learn how to skim effectively … and study for school!)
They Say / I Say (Demystifies the structure of passages)
Writers’ Choices: Grammar to Improve Style (Great reference book for grammar)
Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century  (Fun to read grammar book. Imagine that!)
The Art of X-Ray Reading: How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing 
Rhetorical Devices (Many critical reading passage questions are about rhetorical devices. This book gives lots of practice.)



Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

The post Recommended Books for the SAT and ACT appeared first on Perfect Score Project.

Below are of my favorite (and less well known) links to help you prepare for the SAT and ACT.

Arts & Letters Daily — Articles to prepare you for the SAT reading section.
New York Times Opinion Pages — Articles to prepare you for the SAT reading section.
Chart Your Errors (after practice SATs)
Chart Your Errors Example
Academic Word List (2 pages)
Literary Devices
Transition Words
Why is Anki Effective? (Spaced Repetition)
Anki
Vocabulary in Context Examples
Tone and Attitude
Greek Latin Roots
Sample Rhetorical Devices
Pronouns
How to Skim Effectively
Abstract nouns
Tips to Reduce Test Anxiety



Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

The post Useful Links for SAT and ACT Test Prep appeared first on Perfect Score Project.

Here are five easy tips to improve your SAT score:

Avoid Careless Errors — Read every word in the question and answer choices, don’t get stuck on a question, and use your calculator (even for the easy questions).  Make sure to turn the last page of every section — especially at the end of the test when you’re tired.
Sit in the front row if you’re allowed to choose your own seat. This will minimize distractions.
Keep your own time during the test. Don’t rely on the proctors. Bring an analog watch. You can’t use a phone or a watch that beeps. I had one really bad SAT experience where the proctor botched the time and the 5-minute warnings on nearly every section.
Bring the right snacks. The test is only 4 hours, but it will be a good six hours from the time you have breakfast until you’ll be free for lunch. Plan to use the 3 five-minute breaks wisely. My favorite snacks were apple (fills the belly), super dark chocolate (70% cocoa or higher), water, and Listerine strips.
Make sure you are at a test center that administers the SAT in classrooms, versus gyms and cafeterias, which are noisy and distracting.

Click here to sign up for SAT tips to arrive in your In Box. And stay connected on Facebook and Twitter where I often post links of interest.

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

The post 5 Easy Tips for the SAT appeared first on Perfect Score Project.

How to cultivate teenage drive is the $64,000 question, and while I am not a parenting expert, I do believe that the secret to motivating a teenager is the relationship. A shared experience can be a powerful agent of connection, and it is that connection that allows an adult to motivate an adolescent.

Collecting Dance. Developmental psychologist Gordon Neufeld explains the “collecting ritual” in his book Hold On To Your Kids. The collecting dance is akin to making a baby smile before picking it up. The same holds true for a teenager: you must catch the eye and establish a connection in order to be a source of motivation.
Enthusiasm. Most teenagers are more interested in their friends than in their parents and the SATs. In fact, the more into the friends they are, the harder it will be to get their attention. A peer-oriented teenager will need more enthusiasm and initiative from the parent to become motivated than one who is oriented toward adults. Given Ethan’s level of peer orientation at the time, I needed to deploy radical enthusiasm.
Parental Involvement. Remain interested and involved, even if your teenager is resistant. I saw with my own eyes that adolescents do better academically when parents are involved beyond monitoring homework, and I believe Neufeld’s work with adolescents confirms my experience.
Invite the Connection. The most potent source of motivation for a teenager is attention and interest in what they are doing. A shared project says that the child matters and is special. The relationship that results from this sustained proximity allows for the parent to act as a compass in the child’s life and to activate motivation.

Read a related post: Motivating a Teenager to Study for the SAT

What is the Perfect Score Project? Find out more here.

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

The post How to Cultivate Teenage Drive appeared first on Perfect Score Project.

I developed a Critical Reading Intensive for students who need help with the reading section. Students who have taken the intensive have seen dramatic increases in their reading scores. See below for some of the feedback.

And click here to read more: Critical Reading Intensive

Critical Reading Intensive Feedback:

Thank you for your support! Through your Critical Reading Intensive, I earned an 800 on Critical Reading (770 on Math and 770 on Writing). The Intensive gave me valuable practice material to practice analyzing the article the right way. It also gave me confidence when solving the real test.

Also, I was accepted to Harvard. The 800 CR you helped me earn was a major factor in my acceptance. Thank you for your help.

–K.L., High School Senior

“Just got my December scores back: CR 700 and Writing 800!!! That gives me a 700-800-800 superstore of 2300! Thank you so much for all of your help. I really don’t think I could have gotten my score up 130 points on my own.” 

— Gary R., High School Junior

“740 CR !!!! My score would not have been remotely possible without all of your time and effort. Thank you so so so much.”

— Ness F., High School Senior

“You are a miracle worker! I don’t know how it’s possible to raise somebody’s score by 160 points in less than three months. Don’t they say the typical increase is 20 points? We are so grateful to you.”

— Olga, Mother of a High School Junior

I am sending you a screenshot of J’s old and new SAT scores so you can see the improvement in his final SAT, thanks to you! This is a 220-point improvement over his single best SAT score of 2030 (on June 6th)!

— J.R., Father of High School Senior

I am writing to you to advise of the positive impact the course made on her ACT. On her first ACT, her reading score was 26 and her composite score was 28.

On her most recent ACT, after completing your course, her reading score was 33 and her composite score was 29. Due to the significant increase in her reading score, she is able to “superscore” her score for two of the universities she is interested in, giving her a composite score of 30.

— Jayme Harrington

“Just want to say thanks for your amazing course. My CR score increased 90 points from 530 to 620 and my writing went up from 650 to 690 . . . your course really does work.”

— W.M.,  Rising High School Senior

“One big thing about the Critical Reading Intensive is the CONDITIONING. Reading an article each consecutive day helped me on its own by familiarizing myself with the syntax and diction of SAT-like authors, but adding that spice of questions and content perusing guidelines made the reading more engaging and kept me focused on the passage at hand- a skill that is extremely helpful on the SAT. The act of practicing everyday develops a sense of consistency that soon turns a studying task into an activity that I would look forward to!”

— E.H., High School Junior

“I want to say thank you for everything. You really helped me grasp the nature of the test. Thanks to you, now, even at school I’m able to understand articles a lot better and faster than before. So, even if my score doesn’t rise that much, I still have a lot that I’ve learned and to be thankful for.”

— Karin S.

“My son’s reading score increased by 120 points. I am a bit surprised that one month of New York Times reading has made so much of a difference. He can pick out topic sentences and main idea. Wow!!  I think folks should do the intensive early — as early as a 9th grade — to get into the groove of reading critically.”

— Valsa M., Mother of High School Sophomore & College Freshman

“The content of this course and New York Times articles are outstanding.”

— LaBaron Washington, Father of three (12, 15 and 18-years-old)

“We enjoy the lessons. Your recommendations are phenomenal. Thanks for a unique method of learning vocab & improving comprehension!”

— Marcy Clark, Mother of High School Junior

“I became much more comfortable with the SAT passages once I started reading the New York Times, but reading the articles wasn’t enough.Practicing looking for the main idea instead of at the details is really what helped me because I realized I could automatically eliminate a few answer choices on the SAT just because they don’t follow the main idea.”

— Remi L., High School Sophomore

10th-grade PSAT (Fall 2014): 193

Math: 73 Writing: 63

Critical Reading: 57

Practice SAT (Feb 2015): 2130

Math: 750 Writing: 710 (10 essay)

Critical Reading: 690

“Ever since my summer at Morningside Academy, I’ve suspected that, where reading comprehension is concerned, we’ve been on the wrong track . . . I don’t really buy the argument that good reading comprehension, or good scores on reading comprehension tests, always take years to develop because good reading scores are a matter of background knowledge that takes years to develop. . . Having now taught freshman composition for a few years . . . my sense is that struggling readers can improve pretty quickly. . .So guess what? A month ago Debbie finally took the plunge and created a 28-day “intensive” course in SAT-type reading — and it works! . . . If I had a teenager at home, I would definitely sign him up.“– Catherine Johnson, Kitchen Table Math

“I got a LOT more out of that lesson than I ever would have on my own!! Your lessons have been very helpful and the tips and strategies I learned for them will help me not just for the SAT but beyond in terms of any reading comprehension or reading material. It’s easier for me to understand the passages and to point out the author’s main argument.”

    — A.M. High School Junior, California

 

The post The Critical Reading Section appeared first on Perfect Score Project.

Below are a few clips from my keynote speech at the Kumon North American Instructor’s Conference.

Habits, Love, Teenagers, Relationships, Kumon & the SAT (5:40): 

Video discusses:

How to convince a teenager to do what you want them to do (i.e., things they don’t want to do)
The power of habits and how to cultivate habits in children and teenagers
What I wish I’d known when my kids were younger (speaking as the mother of an 18-year-old and 20-year-old)

How to Motivate a Teenager (8:11):

Video discusses:

Tip #1: To motivate a teenager, stopped focusing on their behavior and started focusing on the relationship.
Tip #2: Expect there to be bumps along the way. A kid who does bad things is not a bad kid. Get back on the horse and focus on building the relationship.
Tip #3: The worst “punishment” my teenage son had ever heard of turned out to be the best “punishment” I inadvertently stumbled onto.

Why I Took My Teenagers to Kumon … and Why They Rebelled (8:24)

When my kids were teenagers, I thought it would be “fun” for the 3 of us to do Kumon together over summer vacation. Had I known the magnitude of fight that would ensue, I probably would have re-thought that first visit to Kumon. #clueless

To find out more about my speaking and tutoring services, click on this link:  Tutoring & Speaking

And/or, please send an email if you’d like to discuss further: Debbie@PerfectScoreProject.com

Increase your reading score with the Critical Reading Intensive or boost your SAT Essay skills with the SAT Essay Intensive.

Click on an Intensive below to learn more.

Critical Reading Intensive

Essay Intensive

The post Habits, Love, Teenagers, Relationships, Kumon, and the SAT appeared first on Perfect Score Project.

Take a look at the score gains in the screenshot below. 

I received this text message from one of my students:

 

Have You Reached Your Score Goal?

This student was extremely motivated and methodical. We spent about 1 – 1.5 hours per week together, going over her tests. Most of the heavy lifting was done on her own.

7-Steps to a 350 Point SAT Score Increase:

1 – Establish a Starting Point: She began the process with a lot of test anxiety, which makes her score gain all the more remarkable. She not only had the standard challenges everyone else has, but she also had to address the anxiety issue. Anxiety is terrible for an SAT score.

The goal for the December SAT was to survive!

2 – Study Aids: She took a brief hiatus after the December SAT, then started the Critical Reading Intensive by late December.

Critical Reading Intensive – 28 Critical Reading Lessons
The New Math SAT Game Plan by Philip Keller

In January, she studied math, using The New Math SAT Game Plan, and took a few sections out of the College Board’s Blue Book.

3 – Practice SATs: By early February, she was ready to start taking full, timed practice SATs. We made a schedule — one full SAT every weekend.

4 – Test Analysis: After she took each practice test, she’d spend 1 day, looking up every single vocabulary word she didn’t know, including those from the reading passages. She studied those words every day, until test day.

5 – Charting Errors: After looking up the vocab, she would chart each of her errors, giving careful consideration to why she made the error, and coming up with new strategies for the next practice test.  During the week, between practice tests, she’d spend about one hour per day, sitting with her errors.

6 – Different Methods: Each week, she tried out different “methods” of answering questions on her practice SATs. For example, one week she tried the passage based reading questions without reading the passage first (it didn’t work), another week she tried not guessing/leaving the question blank if she wasn’t sure of the answer (it worked), and another week she tried not leaving any questions blank.

7 – Practice Scores vs. Real Scores: Her practice scores fluctuated by about 50 points per section, from week to week. In the end, her May SAT math and reading scores were in the lower end of her range, and her writing score came in right in the middle.

This is a low cost test prep plan that could work for any highly motivated, methodical student.

Study Materials:

Critical Reading Intensive — $147
Essay Intensive — $147
The New Math SAT Game Plan by Philip Keller — $17.00
The Official SAT Study Guide — $17.50

If tutoring is what you’re looking for, send me an email and let’s talk.

Debbie@PerfectScoreProject.com

 

Increase your reading score with the Critical Reading Intensive or boost your SAT Essay skills with the SAT Essay Intensive.

Click on an Intensive below to learn more.

Critical Reading Intensive

Essay Intensive

The post 7-Steps to a 350 Point SAT Score Increase appeared first on Perfect Score Project.

I just received the following email, which I thought I’d share because I hear some variation of this, all the time.

Dear Debbie,

My daughter’s taking 45 minutes to complete the 25-minute critical reading sections. She normally gets 2-4 wrong per critical reading section. So I do not think the issue is comprehension; it’s reading speed. (She’s been taking a section a day.)

I came across your website while trying to research ways to improve her reading speed — and listened to your radio interview — priceless.   I like you idea of reading non-fiction articles and reviewing vocabulary she’s missed over the last year. But taking 20 minutes off her time is daunting to me.

Do you have any other suggestions or references for helping to get her reading speed up?

I am wondering if I should postpone the test until she does get her reading speed up and has time to practice full length tests. Her first SAT is only 5 weeks away.

Do you have any suggestions or thoughts?

Hi!

I do have thoughts. My daughter had the exact same issue.

I’m actually working on a CR program right now — hoping to launch in the next few weeks. One big lesson will be “effective skimming.”

Kids have so much trouble skimming because they’ve never been taught how to do it.

Basically, you have to know how to find the main point (quickly), read that carefully, then skim the nonessential info. There are textual clues that point to the main point and to information the author thinks is important.

I will go over all of this in the program!

You can sign up here for information about the reading program here: www.perfectscoreproject.com/news

If you’d like to speak before I launch the program, or have me work with your daughter (or work with you to work with her) privately, let me know. I tutor for the reading and writing sections and consult with families who’d like to do test prep on their own.

I would postpone the test, unless she can iron out the speed issue quickly, which is definitely possible.

Once I gave my daughter “the keys,” she got it.

Then, she had the issue of “test anxiety” to overcome, which was a much bigger problem, though completely surmountable. I’ll post something soon about how she overcame paralyzing test anxiety. In the end, a few simple strategies helped her overcome the fear and perform on test day.

Keep in touch: Debbie@PerfectScoreProject.com

Debbie

The SAT Yellow Brick Road

You can sign up for a FREE series of tailored emails that will lead you step-by-step through the entire SAT process:

1) Parent Series

2) Student Series

Each series also includes links to SAT resources and articles that I highly recommend.

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

The post Critical Reading Speed appeared first on Perfect Score Project.