<p>My freshman just got back his PSAT score, It is a 139. Is there reason to be concerned about this? He is a good A-B student with advanced classes. I'm not worried about NM but I do want him to have respectable scores to apply to college. Is it too soon to be thinking about any prep? I see him being more successful with gradual work to improving scores rather that going with an all out effort the summer of his Junior year. Do you have any suggestions or should we just let him develop as he does and put this on the back burner for another year.</p>
<p>181818 relax. IMO it's too early to start prepping .
If you want , you can look at the math section on the PSAT booklet. Ask your S whether or not the questions he had wrong were about concepts that were not familiar to him.
If your S read diverse books in and out of the classroom coupled with vocab. tests, there is no way his test score won't go up.</p>
<p>My freshman son underperformed for his ability on his psat but we told him that we will help him prep (tutor or class) starting the summer before Junior year, when the PSAT counts for NM. He can also take his first SAT in Junior year/OCT since the prep is basically the same. We told our son not to worry about it until then. Time and maturity may change his scores on their own. We will look at his sophomore PSAT more carefully in terms of which areas he needs work on. Freshman year is just too soon.</p>
<p>Here's my advice about test prep in general: </p>
<p>READ, READ </p>
<p>To learn how to score well on a standardized test reading section, the number one piece of advice is READ, READ, READ, and READ. Read about what you like to know more about. Read things that are fun for you. Find books and magazines about interesting topics and read them. Turn off the TV and read. Put away the video game controller and read. Read hard things, and read easy things. Read a lot. </p>
<p>For years, I wondered why it came so readily to mind to write "READ, READ, READ" in all capital letters like that when I give advice on this subject, as I have frequent occasion to do. Recently, I reread the section "Suggestions for Study" in the front matter of John DeFrancis's book Beginning Chinese Reader, Part I, which I first used to learn Chinese back in 1975. In that section of that book, I found this passage, "Fluency in reading can only be achieved by extensive practice on all the interrelated aspects of the reading process. To accomplish this we must READ, READ, READ" (capitalization as in original). </p>
<p>Someone the age of a freshman high school student should enjoy a lot of independent reading and find out what is interesting. That will lay a foundation for future higher scores.</p>
<p>Tokenadult: I really appreciate what you are saying about reading. That really rings true for this kid. He's a kid who gets his work done but when he is finished he will do almost anything else, even if electronic devices are shut down, reading is nearly never a choice. Once the Harry Potter series was done I have not found reading material that has drawn him in and reading occurs only as something he has to do. I can certainly lay down the law for 30 minutes of reading per day as we did in elementary school but I would much prefer to approach this another way. I can see this to be not only a key to improving test scores but also for enhancing future success. I would appreciate suggestions about how to accomplish this.</p>
<p>You may find this thread useful (in which we discussed books for boys who dislike reading):</p>
<p>181818: Certainly he's reading something. Just reading almost anything is good -- newspapers, magazines. Sports? Comic books? </p>
<p>What I just listed is mostly what my son used to read for pleasure, and it worked out well for him. Now he reads all kinds of literaure, books and articles on politics, history, etc. But probably 75% of his reading is on-line.</p>
<p>Another approach is for your son to find activities in school that involve extra reading. For my son it was debate (in high school) but several others can do the trick as well. Foreign language study also helps with English.</p>
<p>So let your kid grow and follow his interests -- and read almost anything. He's still a kid, and as long as he stays engaged in academics he's going to improve his scores as he matures.</p>
<p>I agree with reading. Both my sons read a lot and both have scored very high on the CR. In fact it was a bit of joke that the oldest (aka Mathson) scored an 800 in CR twice, but never managed to do the same in math which is actually his strength. </p>
<p>I'd also take a look at the question and answer part of the PSAT. My younger son got a lot of math problems wrong because he just hadn't met them in school yet. So a low score there is nothing to worry about and not atypical for a freshman. You don't need to prep now, just keep an eye on things. A low writing score might indicated some grammar review down the line if it's not addressed in class for example. (Foreign language study is a great way to learn grammar - my kids swear by Latin.)</p>
<p>Keep trying with the reading. My younger son for example is reading all the Star Wars novels (he got through half of them last summer). He also enjoys a subscription to Air and Space and usually reads some of the articles in Scientific American. Another favorite series of his is the military sci fi of David Weber. The reading does not have to be great literature.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the suggestions, and for providing the direction to improve critical reading by increasing reading to improve overall performance. The math section did not produce an outstanding outcome but good enough considering Geometry was only barely begun and Alg. II not started at the time of testing. I expect that math will take care of itself. The link you provided has some interesting suggestions. I will share some of this with him and see if anything resonates with him. He has actually been working overtime on classic lit in his pre-AP class. It seems like for all of the effort that this took it should have provided a little boost. Now that he is on to poetry I may be able to encourage some fun reading. Seican, like your son he is a kid that just prefers to be active. I am actually thrilled with the effort he has put into his school work as a freshman and I really don't want these scores to discourage him and make him feel that he is not smart. I have heard some of this from him since the test results came back. It is a little tough because both his brother and his best friend are top of the class types of students. I think that when he saw his scores and both of their freshman scores it took him down several notches.</p>