Chapter 27
In This Chapter
Discovering constructive ways to help your son or daughter prepare for the ACT
Pointing out your role the day of the test
As a parent, you may wonder what you can do to help your student study for the ACT. Well, wonder no longer! This chapter has ten specific steps for helping your child do his or her best.
If you bought this book for your child, you did him a huge favor. Reading this book and taking the full-length practice tests in Chapters 20, 22, and 24 give your child an edge over other juniors and seniors who haven’t prepared. Nicely done!
Possessing this book is one thing; actually using it is another. Help your child work out a study schedule and give her incentives to stick to it, such as picking out the family’s dinner menu for one week or allotting her a larger share of the family’s talk and text minutes.
Make sure your student has a quiet study area where he can concentrate without being disturbed by siblings, pets, friends, TV, the computer, or his cellphone. Quality study time is time spent without distractions.
You’ll be better able to discuss the questions and answers with your child if you take the practice tests, too. Pretend you’re a test proctor and be the official timer for your student when she takes the full-length practice tests. After she’s done, read through the answer explanation chapters (Chapters 21, 23, and 25) with your whiz kid and help her discover which question types she may need to improve on. Then look up those particular topics in earlier chapters for a refresher on the rules that govern them.
Help your child recognize mistakes in English usage questions by speaking properly with him and gently correcting his grammar mistakes in your conversations. Before you know it, he’ll be correcting you!
The online Cheat Sheet for this book has a list of tips your student needs to know for the test; check it out at www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/act. Quiz her to make sure she remembers them.
One of the best ways to improve reading scores is to actually read. Go figure! Incorporate reading into your family’s schedule and set up times to read short passages together and discuss their meanings.
Your child’s ACT score becomes more important to her when she realizes what’s at stake. Taking her to college fairs and campus visits can foster her enthusiasm for college and make taking the ACT more relevant.
If the test site is unfamiliar to you, take a test drive before the exam date to make sure you don’t get lost or encounter unexpected roadwork on the morning of the test. That day, make sure your kid’s alarm is set properly so he rises with plenty of time to get dressed, eat a healthy breakfast, and confirm he has the items he needs to take with him to the exam.
Remind your student that although the ACT is important, it isn’t more important than her schoolwork or being good to her family. Her exam score isn’t a reflection of her worth (or your parenting skills). It’s just one of many tools colleges use to assess students’ skills and determine whether they’re a proper fit for their freshman classes.