Vantage Learning Blog

Turn The Paige | Here We Go Again: SAT® Prep for the Fall

The end of the school year is fast approaching, and we all know what that means: the new school year will follow all-too-soon, with the SAT® just around the corner. As recent news indicates, students are feeling more and more pressure to excel on the SAT®. Whatever your views on the SAT®, it’s an unavoidable reality for most college-bound students. And as teachers and parents, it’s our responsibility to give them the guidance, skills, and preparation they need to do their best come test day.

Whether you’re teaching summer school, planning for the following fall, or just scheming ways to engage your child in summertime learning, early SAT® prep can be a helpful way of imparting much-needed knowledge in key areas, like English and mathematics, while practicing important test-taking skills—all while avoiding the added pressure of last-minute study come autumn.

To prepare for the SAT®, many people use online SAT® programs, after-school or summer prep classes, or reference books—or, more likely, a combination of all three! (Keep an eye out for Vantage Learning’s own SAT®-prep packages, coming soon to a school near you!) But, though it be summer, SAT® prep doesn’t have to be a bore—and it doesn’t have to be done indoors, either. Go outside:

• Design an outdoor scavenger hunt in the neighborhood using SAT® vocabulary words or math equations or formulas. Provide instructions for players to find information—say, the first half of a math formula, or the definition of a word. They must answer the question correctly before they can receive instructions for the next piece of information. Be sure to reward them at their destination—say, a restaurant with a lunch party for their friends, or a movie theater for that summer blockbuster they’ve been wanting to see.
• Plan a game using water balloons: Post or call out a question, then have kids answer it. If they get the answer right, they get to keep their water balloons; if they get the answer wrong, they have to break one of their balloons—over themselves, over a person of their choice, or at the wall. The person with the most water balloons left at the end of the game wins—and a massive water balloon fight can begin!
• Play a team game like flag football. Assign a letter (A-E) to each color flag—red, blue, green, yellow, and black—then shout out a practice question and its corresponding options. Players try to grab the correct flag. The team with the most correct flags at the end of the game wins.
• If those games are a bit too ambitious to plan, fun can still be had: take a day trip to the beach or have a picnic in the park, flashcards and books in tow. Do a little here, a little there, and by the end of the summer, your teen will have soaked up plenty of sun and SAT® skills.

Whatever your preferred course of study, help your students stay calm, confident, and focused with these helpful tips.

What are your favorite resources or strategies for SAT® prep? What do current SAT®-prep resources lack that you would like to see in future products or services?

-Paige