OLSAT (gifted and talented program entrance test preparation )

Sometimes parents have doubts whether it is wise to prepare their children for the schools’ entrance exams for the gifted and talented programs. Apparently, the tests exist to check the abilities necessary for the programs, and if the abilities are not good enough, why try to enter?

 Once, I had a conversation with a young parent of a three-and-a-half-year-old kid, who had similar doubts. His older son (who came to the US at the age of 4) scored very high on the ERB test with no tutoring whatsoever. While his younger son, he felt, did not possess this kind of capabilities.

I drew the following picture to him:

                   and asked if his son, in his opinion, is able to mark a circle: 1) under a rectangle that has a diamond inside it; 2) and next to a triangle that has a circle with a square inside it. The father was perplexed and asked to repeat the question.

  That was my point – “repeat”. The man was not ready for this kind of assignment, same as children who take the test without knowing what the test is about. They get confused, are taken aback, and sometimes they are too shy to ask again. Very often children lose the receptivity and the willingness to listen and follow the instructions after 30 minutes of sitting in one place and marking circles (and the tests usually last for 45-60 minutes).

 This is the reason why we need to prepare the youngsters. We need to develop in them the desire and capacity to work for 45 minutes without distraction, to listen and to understand the assignments, to coordinate the vision with the logical thinking, quickly recognize the point of a problem.

  However, even the most modern children are just children who want to play. Sure, one can make them sit down, and push to work with (most often black-and-white) test preparation books, but they will lose interest to study very soon.

  Sometimes, such “over-worked” children do not want to take the test, are afraid of a failure, and this fear can persist far into the future.

  In my opinion, even in preparation for the tests we have to play – to play with little cars, dolls, hearts, stickers and buttons, using them to compose logic sequences, analogies, math puzzles etc.

  Only then a kid won’t be afraid to take the test, will be ready to look for a star inside of a triangle with a circle next to it. She will be ready to play for an hour, although on the test the game may be somewhat duller than the one she played in Wunderkid.

  To finish the young father’s story: his small boy in the end was accepted into the Anderson program. And after a talk with his mother, she realized that she actually made a lot of work with their older son to develop his memory and attentiveness. They just thought it was natural then, and later they forgot about it. After their immigration they had to work a lot, and unfortunately, could not find the time to educate their second child adequately.