Is the real SAT harder than the practice tests?

This week on Dear Jonah, an anxious parent wants to know if the real SAT is harder than the practice test. Dear Jonah, I’m not a current client but I have a question anyway. Hope that’s ok! I’m mother of a high school junior, [name], who’s preparing for his SAT. He’s doing well on practice … Read more

Why won’t the teacher give my dyslexic student more time?

This week on Dear Jonah, we’ll answer a parent question about why a teacher won’t give a dyslexic student more time in class to complete assignments. Parents often ask me questions about how they can best support their child with what they’re learning. Many feel they aren’t doing enough, or aren’t doing the right thing, … Read more

What’s the best test prep timeline for a busy student?

Parents often ask me questions about how they can best support their child with what they’re learning. Many feel they aren’t doing enough, or aren’t doing the right thing, to help their child succeed. I see a lot of these questions more than once, so I’ve decided to collect them and post them here for … Read more

My autistic son is skipping math class

Parents often ask me questions about how they can best support their child with what they’re learning. Many feel they aren’t doing enough, or aren’t doing the right thing, to help their child succeed. I see a lot of these questions more than once, so I’ve decided to collect them and post them here for … Read more

Testing accommodations for anxiety

Parents often ask me questions about how they can best support their child with what they’re learning. Many feel they aren’t doing enough, or aren’t doing the right thing, to help their child succeed. I see a lot of these questions more than once, so I’ve decided to collect them and post them here for … Read more

How to make an ACT study plan

This week’s post about how to make an ACT study plan is a little unusual. These weekly columns typically focus on questions I get from parents about how to support their child with learning differences, not test prep advice. But I’ve been getting a lot of questions like this one lately, and I recently wrote … Read more

Professor won’t grant extensions or accommodations

In absence of that, we’ll need to work on self-advocacy skills a bit. I really wish that [your son] didn’t have to do this, and that his professors were better about providing him with the accommodations he deserves. Unfortunately, this is a pretty big difference from his middle school and high school experience, where his accommodations were federally mandated and he didn’t need to self-advocate. Now that he’s in college, he has to do a lot more fighting for himself, which is a tough change to adjust to.

Paper test or virtual test?

But actually the biggest reason I’d say she should go with the paper test is the benefit to her sustained focus. [Your daughter] tends to to fidget and bounce, especially as she needs to sit still for a long period of time. There are a lot of things she can interact with on a paper test (paper corners to fold, edges to rip, doodles to draw) that she can’t do with a digital test, and I recommend she do those things on her homework. It can be disruptive in class, I know, but when she’s taking this test alone and not distracting anyone, it helps her focus.

Will requesting accommodations reflect poorly on us?

If you’re worried about any note about accommodations making colleges think twice about accepting her, definitely don’t worry about that–they won’t see her accommodations information and they won’t discriminate (or rather, it’s illegal to discriminate) based on that. That information won’t be shared with the school, and even if it was, it won’t reflect poorly on her.