Classics that can Raise SAT Scores

 

Hi Lee,

One of the times I heard you speak, you mentioned a certain publisher of literature books (classics) by a particular author that you had your boys read to prepare for the SAT. They were unique in the fact that on the back of each page words were defined.I cannot find that information in my file of notes from you. Do you recall those books, and would you mind sending me the name? Thank you for your time,

~ Valerie

 

What a good question! I love this question, because I can talk about one of my “favorite finds” for high school English! We used Kaplan books called “Score-Raising Classics. ” They have the real-literature text on the left hand page, and interesting vocabulary words are in bold (vocabulary words that are found on the SAT test, for example. ) On the right hand page is the bold words with their definition. I would generally read these books aloud to my children, one teenager on each side. As I read aloud, they were able to quickly grab any definitions that they needed, as they looked over my shoulder. It worked GREAT! Here is the link to one of those style of books, so you can see it:

We located a similar series of books for studying Shakespeare. The New Folger Library publisher, from Washington Square Press, has the same style for their Shakespeare. The vocabulary is in bold in the text. The right hand page has the bold words defined. It goes further – the difficult to understand phrases are also explained, to ensure you can fully grasp some of the Shakespearean context
as well. Here is a link to one of those books at Amazon:

I frequently mention these books when I talk about literature OR test preparation for the SAT, as they fit both needs at once.
I hope that helps!