It feels like I’m on a kajillion e-mailing lists for giftedness and homeschooling and recently I got a notice that really caught my eye. Homeschoolbuyerscoop.org was offering a special group buy for “PrepMe Precocious“…”a full year of SAT/ACT prep designed specifically for bright, highly-motivated 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.”
This is so wrong. And I’m not even talking about the eye-popping cost.
Talent searches were created to serve a very specific pedagogical purpose: to administer an out-of-level achievement test to students who had already topped out on grade level tests. The idea is to provide a snapshot of a child in order to then provide the appropriate academic supports, both in school and through enrichment activities like the various Talent Search camps. The talent searches are very clear that they do not want students to prep for the test, other than to be somewhat familiar with the format. I see it as akin to respecting the confidentiality of IQ testing instruments. (Of course prepping for SATs at the appropriate age, no problem.)
In C.’s case, taking the SAT at age 12 was really necessary in order to understand where this kid stood in terms of academic potential. People “get” SATs in a way that that they don’t get other testing. For years it was blah, blah, blah blah when we tried to advocate. WISC-IV? Woodcock-Johnson? The system’s own tests? Didn’t mean a thing. But when we could lay those SAT scores on the table people finally understood what we were talking about, what we were dealing with. (And, believe me, despite knowing all that we knew up that to that point, her parents were completely blown away when we opened that envelope.) As a friend wryly noted, “No matter how old the person, everyone remembers their SAT scores.” (Yup. C. has surpassed mine.)
Until a few months ago I had no idea that anyone prepped for these tests. C. did none, other than being a voracious reader her whole life. However one day C. got an e-mail from an online classmate asking for advice on how to improve her critical reading score. This girl said she had tried several times to get it over 700 (in order to qualify for SET), but just hadn’t been able to do so. Poor C. was completely weirded out. “What do I say?” she asked me. Because she had done absolutely nothing to prepare. C. wrote something innocuous back. Then, even weirder, we got an email from this girl’s dad. He and his daughters had come up with the idea of creating a test prep book aimed at just this 7-8th grade demographic. Would we be interested in C. participating in the project? Uh, sorry. And again we had to write back that we couldn’t really give advice on prepping for the SAT because C. had achieved what she did without preparation.
So should every child participate in a Talent Search? Quite simply, no. And should a child be pushed by parents to prep for it? Double no.
[...] public middle school and high school magnets (Shame to the MCPS teachers participating!) and middle school Talent Search. So to try to even the playing field, MCPS has produced this booklet on preparing for the tests [...]
I just read this post – thank you for sharing it with me. I had no idea that kind of thing went on. That’s definitely the same kind of craziness as your post about Kindergarten testing and you stated both very well.
Thanks for sending the link.
Hi,
I just saw this post. I know this is an old post. My dd like yours took her SAT with no prep either and she was way young. I knew that people prepped a lot for these tests; in some cases kids are prepared as young as 6. I am baffled at it all. But not sure if the preparation really leads the kids to score high. May be familiarizing with the tests?. But not sure if preparing diligently for it really serves any purpose. But may be it does for some kids. I know there are very anxious parents out there. It could be viewed similar to the math competitions where kids prepare for years, learn the patterns in problems, ropes behind solving quickly and well….These days I hear that even IQ tests or something similar are sold on ebay and I hear many parents prepare their kids for such tests. I am so skeptical about all these scores, tests and such these days. I guess ultimately what matters is what the child does with it all in its adult life.
Thanks for posting this.
-Subadra
Ha. Well, this is years later and you know what we keep seeing here in Chicago? You’ll gag. Prep classes to take the kindergarden city gifted test.