Get Ready! for Standardized Tests: How to Help Your Kids Score High on Any Standardized Test(Get ready!)

This follow up to the six lead titles in the "Get Ready Series" will help parents help their children to develop the core skills they so desperately need to do well in their classes and to perform at grade level on standardized tests. Mathematics and reading comprehension are the two most important areas where children must learn mastery, and they are also those where students struggle most to attain competence. Especially for those students who have a weakness in a specific area, these targetted books will provide expert techniques and practice exercises to bring performance up to speed on state-mandated tests. Among the states the basic curriculum in reading and mathematics is consistent from grade to grade, and the new "Get Ready" titles will be filled with tips and techniques for parents who want to help optimize their children's performance in these essentials. Every book will be geared to a specific grade level with sample problems and practice exercises written to reinforce each skill and mirror the actual material used in the discipline, in classroom work and on the standardized tests. Each type of problem or question will be related to its equivalent as used on the most-widely known standardized tests, and clear explanations of what skills students should be learning in first, second or third grade. Creative techniques are included which help children master grade-appropriate concepts and a skill review after every section helps parents gauge their child's progress with the skills checklist. An appendix with further information on sources for help and table of state-mandated tests - which states give which tests and when they're given - concludes the book.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; Skill Checklist; Part I. Working With Words: base words and endings; blends; consonant digraphs; final and initial consonants; contractions; rhyming words; singular and plural; vowels: long and short; vowel digraphs, diphthongs; Part II. Knowing The Words: classification; sight vocabulary; word recognition; Part III. Reading and Thinking: main idea; sequence; context clues; picture clues; details; cause and effect; predicting outcomes; drawing conclusions; Part IV. Learning to Study: alphabetical order; Final Test; Answer Key; Appendix A. For More Information; Appendix B. Handy Websites; Index

About the Author :
Molly Maack has a BA in Early Childhood Education; she has taught first grade for six years, the past three years at the Governor Mifflin school district in Shillington, PA. Series editor Carol Turkington is a health writer, specializing in developmental psychology. She has been a medical writer at Duke University Medical Center, and spent five years as senior writer and editor in clinical and developmental psychology at the American Psychological Association, in Washington, DC. She has published many articles on parenting and health in national publications including Parents, Psychology Today, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, and the New York Times.