Private Tutor: Your Complete SAT Critical Reading Prep Course with Amy Lucas

Amy Lucas, an experienced private tutor, acts as a personal guide to the reading comprehension portion of the SAT, keeping students invested in and focused on content and practice exercises. Teens will easily relate to her upbeat and friendly approach. Topics covered include vocabulary, sentence completions, and reading comprehension techniques. She suggests that students group the vocabulary lists in the workbook into one of three categories—Rockin’, Rollin’, or Sinkin’—based on difficulty. The DVDs’ chapters are easily navigated and contain descriptions of the test parts and practice drills for each. Lucas’s technique-oriented process for the reading comprehension portion of the SAT requires the same strategies for short and long passages: summarize the main idea, read and restate the questions, go back to the passage and dig, answer the questions in your own words, and use the process of elimination. Uncluttered graphics on a split screen, with Lucas on the other half, compel students to follow her step-by-step instructions, which may be paused at any point for explanations or a return to the main menu. Lucas’s mantra to restate information in your own words before answering a question allows students to trust their judgment, making it less likely that they will be confused by tricky questions. Viewers are given the option to personalize their learning by choosing one of three reading comprehension techniques. The accessible workbook, containing most of the DVD’s narration and practice questions, also features a master list of vocabulary words.–Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY