My daughter, 14, took the ACT this year and did quite well. However, her reading score is fairly low. Her problem is that she reads very well, but will not skim.

Our response is to practice this summer so that this is higher during her tenth grade year. I am going to "try" to hire someone to coach her and let her know that she can skim. I tell her, but she thinks it is cheating.

We are also going to work tests from books and have her read more. (She has quit reading as much now that she has an I-phone.)

I am looking for suggestions for ACT prep books and other books to get her to read faster. Her English score was very high; reading score low.

Thanks.

Is the issue that she needs to skim, or that she needs to increase her reading speed? Increased reading speed is a useful college skill, particularly if you're planning a reading-intensive major. Skimming, particularly of material in an area where you aren't already an expert, is IMHO not a particularly useful skill - there are too many nuances you can miss.

Reading speed is relatively trainable, too.

You should also look on the chat site College Confidential. They will have alot of suggestions about what books are good for ACT, etc.

By skimming, I mean not stopping to make sure one can pronounce a surname. This is a part of fluency and she has had this issue all along. Knowing what and what not to retain is important and she retains everything. She is a bit of a perfectionist and I believe this to be part of her problem (takes after her dad on this one).


Thanks for the suggestions. I will look there.

Great ideas on College Confidential. High scorers (34-36) had great suggestions. One is underlining key words in questions and underlining same words (while skimming) the text. Answer all general questions and come back to the theme or these types of questions.

Sparknotes.com is a great site for ACT and SAT prep. Lots of good advice that I found applied well to the actual tests. It has practice tests too, I believe. Plus it's free.

Thanks so much, hip. That looks great. 35 questions in 40 minutes. Yikes!

She wants to get into Colorado College, which needs a low score of 29, but wants over 30. Her father graduated from there so she is considered Legacy, but she still has to have the ACT score among other things. She is ranked #1 in her class for now so that helps.

Also, it is expensive so we are hoping for good (I mean great) scholarships.

How transferrable are the Explore scores to the actual ACT? DD16 took the Explore last year at school. She did well, does this mean she'll do as well on the ACT?

Sorry, I don't know. I do know that the readind section on the ACT is much harder (shorter time, etc.) than the SAT.

Depending on how much practice she's had, getting a book of sample tests and just doing a bunch of them at home might help increase her reading score.

Also, it looks like Colorado College has a "choose your own adventure" method for standardized testing. She may not need a good reading score at all for admission: http://www.coloradocollege.edu/admission/application/testing/policy/

We are going to work on the testing books this summer. We hope to get her a good scholarship and Colorado is very ACT focused. The tuition is $50,000 per year.

Thanks for the answer Alexsmom. This is a relief as to getting into CC. Our big scholarships are based on ACT scores of 27 - which is way less than CC expects.

Check out this old thread:
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/45300/Explore_vs_ACT_scores.html

I haven't read all of it, but it may answer your question better than I could.

Based on comments I've read online in forums like this one, and ds's scores on the EXPLORE one year and the ACT a year later, I think a 25 on the former is roughly equivalent to a 25 on the latter. Ds stopped taking the EXPLORE when he was at or near the ceiling (25) in all four areas, and got three 27's and a 20 on the ACT.

Thanks Hip. That was most helpful. Now if I could find her Explore results.

Must clean office....

Thanks for all the help. Thanks to College Confidential and Sparknotes, we have a plan of attack.