Monthly Archives: January 2016

A Different Approach to Vocabulary in the New SAT

A Different Approach to Vocabulary in the New SAT

Your best study strategy? Reading

As you know, the SAT is undergoing a radical overhaul this year to make sure it better reflects the skills students need in college and career. The most divergent changes are happening on the verbal side. In particular, vocabulary is tested in a completely different way from years past. Here is what’s new.
A different type of words
Linguists and educators break words up into three major categories:
• Tier 1: Words that are used often in everyday speech
• Tier 2: Words that occur on a regular basis in speech but might need context to fully understand
• Tier 3: Obscure words that only occur in specific, discipline-based situations
The previous SAT tested a lot of Tier 3 words, which is why the best way to study was “drill and kill” using word lists. The new SAT has moved to testing Tier 2 words. They want to make sure students can use context clues to really understand text, rather than just see if the student has a big (but mainly useless) vocabulary.
Context is everything
As mentioned above, the Tier 2 words used on the new SAT rely on context for meaning. In fact, most of them will have multiple meanings. In a sample test item, a non-fiction passage is given with the word “intense” highlighted. The question asks for the meaning of intense within the given context. The four possible answers are all an accepted meaning of the word, but only one is right within the context of the passage. There are also items in which you have to justify your answer by highlighting the part(s) of the passage that give you a clue into the meaning.
Although it’s still possible to study words with flash cards and similar old-school strategies, you need to make sure that your study materials cover all of the possible meanings of a word.
Your best study strategy? Reading
To best prepare for the verbal side of the new SAT, including vocabulary, the best preparation is to read deeply, both in fiction and nonfiction. Make sure to vary your sources as well. Tier 2 words can carry a different context depending on the source, but if you only read one type of source (like scientific magazines), you might miss other meanings that come from other sources.
No more analogies
The SAT was famous for its use of analogies when testing vocab. Because they want to focus more on context and reading skills rather than rote memorization, the analogies are gone.

The New Education Law: What Parents Need to Know

 

The New Education Law: What Parents Need to Know

No Child Left Behind is gone, replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act.

No Child Left Behind is gone, replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act. President Obama signed ESSA last month and it’s quite different from NCLB. Perhaps the most striking thing about ESSA was the process; the law was drafted in a bipartisan way from the beginning. It’s a balance between returning some powers to the states and the federal government keeping some oversight. Here are the highlights.

Less testing (hopefully)

ESSA still requires accountability testing, but has brought the requirements down somewhat. Students will still be tested in grades 3-8 and once in high school in math and reading. Data still has to be captured for each school as well as various subgroups. Although it’s still early, there is also language that says states and districts can opt to use a national test, like the ACT or SAT, as their high school state accountability test.

While that is only a slight change, the biggest departure when it comes to accountability is that states have almost complete control over setting their own goals, coming up with accountability systems for schools and districts, and what happens if a school or district is underperforming. The law leaves teacher evaluation completely up to the states.

Required intervention

That being said, the Department of Education still has oversight in certain areas, particularly when schools or subgroups are struggling.

The new law requires states to intervene in certain situations:

  • The bottom 5 percent of all schools
  • High schools in which the graduation rate is 67 percent or less
  • Subgroups, such as English language learners or minorities, that are struggling

However, the states have a wide berth in what that intervention looks like. As long as it is research-based and peer-reviewed, the federal government will approve it.

What about the Common Core?

The law only states that individual states need to adopt “challenging standards”. There is no other definition given, except it is noted that the current Common Core State Standards qualify. In fact, the Department of Education is expressly prohibited from forcing or even encouraging states to choose a particular set of standards.

Funding

Overall, the new law takes existing money from various pots and consolidates it into fewer pots, but sometimes with broader goals. For example, anything having to do with school improvement now falls under Title I. New money, from old sources, will be going to physical education, Advanced Placement, counseling, and investments in education technology.