Looking for Teaching Tips on the SAT

I would suppose this thread is a plea to anyone with experience teaching the SAT’s. I will begin a prep class in the next week or so. Other than taking a practice test when I lived in Florida at the age of 14 I have no experience with this test. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. :?: :expressionless:

I taught SAT prep courses as a PT teacher in graduate school and later as a school director, for a total of six years. You’ve got very little time.

If I were you, I’d go to Caves Bookstore, buy the Kaplan SAT preparation book, and start reading. You can use the book as a course text.

The school’s providing the text. They’ve yet to tell me what book I’m teaching. I’ll get it next Wednesday (maybe) and I’m supposed to teach next Friday. What can I say, I’m prepping Taiwanese style. Thanks for the tip Tomas. Maybe I’ll go sit on the floor in Caves and read the book for a few days.

Kaplan/Princeton Review type SAT courses generally improve scores by the following means: lots of practice, pointing out the “quirks” of the test, giving general test-taking tips, and increasing vocabulary. Of course, being American programs that cater to teens, they strongly encourage the teachers to be as fun and entertaining as possible. Your school may not care how entertaining you are as long as you cover all the material.

I taught such a course once and most of the class time was spent reviewing practice tests and answering questions - pretty boring, and I had to be prepared to answer each question so as not to waste class time figuring out how to explain it. Ended up spending a lot more time preparing than I expected. Building vocabulary was a bit more fun as there was more room for creativity.

As Tomas suggested, check out other review books and then when you get your own text, you’ll have something to compare it to. Personally, I think such courses are most benefitial for folks who have trouble with standardized tests. Other students can probably get just as much out of self-study with a good review book. But that’s neither here no there as you’ve just got to teach it. Good luck!