Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power by Sam Burchers

SAT Prep Books

Barron's SAT 2400: Aiming for the Perfect Score

Cracking the SAT

Gruber's Complete SAT Guide

Kaplan SAT 2012: Strategies, Practice, and Review

McGraw-Hill's 12 SAT Practice Tests

The Official Study Guide for All SAT Subject Tests

Tutor Ted's SAT Solutions Manual

Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power

Written by Sam Burchers and published under the imprint New Monic Books (get it?), Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power will help improve your SAT scores and increase your vocabulary by starting to drill SAT vocabulary in the 7th grade. That may seem a little soon to begin SAT prep, but so much depends on a student's SAT scores that it is never too early to start. This book contains vocabulary and SAT prep for students from 7th to 12th grade. Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power promises to teach students hundreds of SAT words without much effort, just occasional drilling. The key, according to the book's authors, is training for SAT vocabulary smarter and not harder.

How Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power Works

The power of using mnemonics to learn big chunks of memorized material can't be overstated. Mnemonics are memorization aids that are much easier to learn that a book full of vocabulary words. Mnemonics are phrases, rhymes, songs, or even just simple acronyms that help people memorize facts by building an association with something familiar.

For example, when you learned the colors of the rainbow as a child, you probably learned the mnemonic Roy G. Biv. By memorizing the simple mnemonic Roy G. Biv, you could instantly recall the colors of the rainbow--red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Each letter in the very silly name Roy G. Biv corresponds with a color.

You can probably think of other mnemonics you learned or made up on your own to remember information important to your school work. The mnemonic for the order of the planets was a popular one at my school: "My very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas." We remember that the order goes Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto by looking at the first letter of each word in the mnemonic.

Vocabulary Cartoons offers mnemonics combined with silly cartoon drawings to burn difficult SAT words into student's heads. The result is that student "see" the drawing when they hear or see the word. This book is especially good for visual learners, though learners of all types will benefit from the mnemonics and drawings found in Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power.

How to Use Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power

Start by introducing the book to your future SAT expert. Read a simple subject word then read the definition, the provided link word (this is the word association portion of the book), show the student the silly drawing and read the accompanying sentence, then read the provided three sentences at the bottom of each page that uses every word on the SAT list in different contexts.

Here's an example: for the SAT word "fathom," the book provides a cartoon of a boy with a gigantic thumb. The caption says "Doctors could never FATHOM the reason for Larry's FAT THUMB." The sentences provided show the word fathom in three different appropriate usages.

Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power suggests adding one word at a time to the list of words your student has already learned--say the vocabulary words already learned and ask the student to use it in a sentence of their own. Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power has a built-in review. Every ten words there is a quiz containing fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice questions. This will help remind kids to review words they've already learned.

Review material for Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power claims that students who practice with this book learn 75% more words than students who don't use this material, and that students have been shown to retain 90% of the words they learn using mnemonics and cartoon association. Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power retails for $12.95, and is available at Amazon and other online book retailers.

The thing that works best about the book is the multiple methods of association. Some students will find the cartoon-based learning beneath them, but they'll use the mnemonics, rhymes, or review materials to improve their vocabulary. This book succeeds in teaching SAT vocabulary because it doesn't rely on a single method for teaching SAT test words. Having flipped through the book just a few times, I can still remember the cartoon and sentence associated with the word "giddy"--because the word sounds similar to "city," the cartoon shows a farmer dazzled by the bright lights of a big city. He's giddy over the city. I bet it takes you a week to shake that image.

Starting to teach SAT vocabulary words to your students in the 7th grade is a good way to avoid cramming in the weeks and months leading up to their SAT test day, and it will improve their vocabulary for all other purposes (essays, etc) in the meantime. Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power is a great non-traditional way to teach students difficult SAT words.