We took a few minutes to get acquainted, then talked a bit about their previous experiences and scores on the SAT. To get a baseline for our efforts, had them take two 25 minute reading sections from Test #1 in the College Board SAT book. After scoring those tests, we discussed their strategies and strengths. It is clear that both Ema and Lily will need to improve their vocabulary because both the reading and writing sections are so dependent of it. I found some vocabulary resources online, they can use. We did a brief overview of Reading Performance System and briefly used five of the exercises to improve their ability to process information.
We focused on the following concepts on the math SAT, ratios, proportions, and angles. i showed her a few strategies that she can apply to the test, for example, the Plug In Method, POE, and some tricks to increase the speed in answering the questions on these types of problems. Some of the tricks can be applied to other types of problems on the SAT. We did several examples covering these topics.
Assignment
She is to go through a practice exam (for the math section) in her SAT book at home, answer the problems to the best of her ability, and pinpoint/identify the specific questions that involve the concepts and strategies that we covered.
We went through the practice problems that I gave to him for homework, along with introducing the concept of Law of Sines.
Assignment
Several problems from a practice exam
Session Minutes
60
Minutes Student Attended
60
Lesson Comments
Hamilton has a weak mathematical background, and does not practice at home. The homework that I give him to work on he does not work out on paper. It seems as if he just guesses the answer without working it out. He jumps to conclusions without thinking things through.
We worked on some practice problems on ACT practice exams dealing with triangles (similar triangles, SOHCAHTOA, Pythagorean Theorem, special right triangles, etc).
He is getting better with his triangles. We will move on to other topics next time.
Today we began the lesson with a review of past vocabulary. We then continued with 8 new words, the culmination of which will be used in an SAT style quiz for the next session. Next we reviewed grammar rules, and did some sentence exercises with subject/verb agreement in quantity and tense. It seemed to be beneficial to review the parts of a sentence, so we will continue this next week.
Session Minutes
60
Minutes Student Attended
60
Lesson Comments
Using the Elmo does not seem productive; we discovered that texting the sentences and words to each other is a much more efficient option.
Due to a confusion in the scheduling, we didn't get a full hour in. Rhodes needs to start working on committing the rules to memory. We're finally approaching the end of that part of the material. Today we focused on verb consistency, conjunctions, and prepositions. She's doing a great job so far.
I was very pleased with how much information Rhodes retained from last week. She told me that she had already started to notice the rules while she wrote papers for school. She came in prepared with multiple questions, and after we covered that material, we continued working on how to break down sentences and ensure they are complete and consistent.
Rhodes is a very strong writer, and she understands the mechanics of writing and sentence structure. Her issue is that she doesn't understand the actual rules of grammar, which will make spotting the issues very difficult for her. We started with the very basic rules of sentence structure, and worked our way up to compound sentences and the the five rules for commas. She took solid notes and did very well in the class. I'm confident we can bring her scores up.
