BE THE “EARLY BIRD”

All parents know the uphill battle of trying to get their teenaged child to do … pretty much anything. The underdeveloped teenage brain has always had a lot to contend with: school, extracurriculars, and the ever-shifting “politics” of romance and friendship.

Add in preparing for the ACT or SAT, especially as some colleges are going test-optional, and it’s no wonder why the topic of ACT/SAT tutoring may earn parents the same dead-eyed stare as when you struggle to pronounce “chipotle” or “cheugy.”

You know it’s important for your student to score well on the ACT/SAT. You want your child to have the best chances of getting into the college or university of their choice. And while a few schools are going test-optional, the best course of action by far is still for your student to score well on the ACT or SAT and submit those scores (to set them apart from the thousands of other straight A students who do not submit test scores).

But where do you start? How do you convince your teenager to take test preparation seriously?

Well, first, you don’t go into battle alone. You give us a call. Or, for the millennial parent who hates phone calls, you can use the chat feature on our website, which is manned by an actual human.

Our amazing directors will give you the information you need to get your child to come in and take our free diagnostic exam. Then, capitalizing on the “how did I do on the diagnostic?” cliffhanger, you’ll come back for a free score report analysis, in which we’ll walk through your student’s strengths and challenges and propose a customized tutoring program based on their needs.

But most importantly, you start early. You start so early it may even seem a little ridiculous.

If your student plans to take the ACT in the fall of their senior year, why would you start tutoring in the spring of their sophomore year? Because last school year, students who started tutoring with us in the spring of their sophomore nearly tripled their score growth.

To be clear, starting early doesn’t mean your student is doing nothing but tutoring in their limited free time. Starting early simply means laying the tracks so that the train can depart—no matter the speed or route the train takes.

By starting early, you are building-in time for:

• Unexpected changes to your student’s schedule. Is one semester busier for your student than the other? Will they want to take off tutoring during school holidays? Will staggering tutoring make it easier to commit to?
• Meaningful relationship-building between your student and their tutor, which always increases score growth and improves skills like confidence, grit, and problem-solving.
• Actual, real, long-lasting learning. We believe in a skills-based approach to instruction. We teach our students how to use commas in a list so that they can successfully use commas in a list for the rest of their life. Will they also correctly answer ACT/SAT questions about using commas in a list? Absolutely. It’s the ultimate win-win.
• Taking multiple practice tests. Academic Approach has 20+ years of in-house data that proves a strong correlation between the number of practice tests students take with us and improved scores.
• Selecting the right test date. Right now, this is particularly important since the SAT is changing to a digital, adaptive test form in Spring 2024. If your student wants to take the paper-and-pencil SAT, they must take the SAT this fall.

What if you’ve got a straight-A kid that is a rock star test-taker? Do they need to start as early? Do they need tutoring at all?

In short, yes. To state the obvious: since Academic Approach was founded in 2001, we have never encountered a student that has not benefitted from instruction, no matter how strong their grades or test scores were.

And frankly, today it is more important than ever to ensure your student is getting individualized instruction. Despite how much we’re all tired of hearing about it, COVID-19 learning loss impacted all students. We can attest from our experience that students are coming in with more gaps in their knowledge than ever before.

To address these learning gaps, we also offer academic tutoring. If you don’t think your student needs ACT/SAT preparation yet, seriously consider academic tutoring in the meantime. The shorter the ACT/SAT program, the less time there will be to address skill gaps, so it will be even more important to ensure your student is caught up.

Do your student, and yourself, a favor by planning ahead and starting early. We understand how busy and stressed you (and your student) may be, and that the topic of standardized testing may be overwhelming or possibly even set your teeth on edge. We get it.

The good news? Make one phone (or robot outreach) and we’ll take it from there.

Matthew Pietrafetta, Ph.D., is the Founder and CEO of Academic Approach, which has locations in Lincoln Park in Chicago, Winnetka, and Highland Park. For more information, call 773-348-8914 or visit academicapproach.com.