Declan told me that he had extended time.

Declan told me he had extended time for testing.

Declan didn't have his book with him so we worked out of a Baron's book his mom got for him. The reading comprehension test was different from the ACT, but it did offer a good opportunity to focus on the key words of the questions and skimming. Declan is definitely improving.

Excellent class. Declan picks it up quickly, already knew much of the stuff. Reviewed some scientific concepts he'd forgotten. Look forward to next class, will continue on charts and graphs section.

I was concerned that we've spent too much time focusing on reading, so Declan and I went back and worked on the basic grammar rules and did practice drills. Four of his mistakes on the practice test were about semicolon's, so we really focused on those, compound sentences and connecting conjunctions.

I've thought a great deal about the best strategy to help Declan improve his reading score. He's very reluctant to skim read anything as I know it makes him feel uncomfortable. So today, we focused on finding the key words in the questions and then skimming the passage for just those key words. He started off underlining everything, but improved with practice. We then talked about tips for skimming the passage (i.e. the first couple of sentences of each paragraph are likely to give the topic) and again, while he seemed uncomfortable with it, he did improve. Regardless of whether he takes the test timed or untamed, I think these strategies will help him find more right answers. Once we were able to get past his anxiety about these techniques, they did seem to help.

In going over Declan's practice reading test, we realized that he did not score as well on the un-timed test as we thought. I still submit that the biggest problem Declan has is the time crunch on the reading section. He spent a lot of time reading the passage, but as a consequence, did not read the questions as carefully as he could. He missed at least 4-5 questions because he misinterpreted the focus of the question. He also has a lot of trouble with the inferrence questions.

We finished going over Declan's practice test and I definitely think he can improve his score. Many of his mistakes were avoidable, particularly the three his missed on subject/verb agreement. Declan knows the rules of grammar, but sometimes over thinks the question. I gave him a bunch of worksheets on agreement to help the rules sink in.