Official SAT Practice Lesson Plans for Teachers by Teachers: Introduction and User Guide

Welcome to the Official SAT Practice Lesson Plans for Teachers by Teachers. We’re thrilled that you’re interested in supporting your students as they prepare for the SAT. We at Khan Academy and College Board know that the best technology platform in the world can’t provide support and instruction to students without caring educators — like you!

We partnered with educators to create this guide to provide teachers with a structure for building an SAT course or preparation program. The guide was designed so that the lessons can be easily separated or combined and used to supplement an ELA or math class or a college skills or planning course.

Your input as an educator is the best way for us to improve this guide. If you have feedback or lessons you created that you’d like to share, please do so here: SATLessonPlans@collegeboard.org.

The Official SAT Practice Lesson Plans for Teachers by Teachers are 16 Math lessons, 16 Evidence-Based Reading and Writing lessons, and 4 Essay lessons. Each lesson is designed to take approximately 45 minutes. The lessons leverage resources such as the Official SAT Study Guide (the big blue book) and Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy to foster a classroom learning experience that will extend to independent practice.

The Math lessons focus on the four content domains (Heart of Algebra, Problem Solving and Data Analysis, Passport to Advanced Mathematics, and Additional Topics in Math) that evidence shows are most important for college and career success. The number of lessons per topic reflects the frequency with which that topic appears on the SAT. Homework each night will direct students to practice both the skills and concepts covered in the lesson as well as whichever skills are being recommended to them by Official SAT Practice.

The Evidence-Based Reading and Writing lessons are organized around key skills and concepts tested on the Reading Test and Writing and Language Test. Practice on Official SAT Practice is organized around passage content and writing type, so even though a class lesson will focus on one or two skills at a time, during independent practice students will be able to apply multiple skills across multiple passages in a way that is authentic to how we read and write in daily life.

The 4 Essay lessons begin with examining and unpacking the prompt and lead into writing a full response that students can submit on Official SAT Practice for immediate feedback.

The Official SAT Practice Lesson Plans for Teachers by Teachers are designed to be used in an educator-led group setting, and students should have access to the internet. With some adaptations, the lessons can be used in a one-on-one setting or with limited devices.

Each lesson includes a “Before the Lesson” section to let you know what materials you will need and what you should preview before sharing the lesson with your class.

For every lesson there will be suggested homework on Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy.

The lessons can be used as a whole or in part. Some lessons are connected (e.g., Heart of Algebra lessons 1 and 2 and Essay lessons 1 and 2), and this is noted at the start of the paired lessons.

There are 10 Math lessons (1,2,4-8, and 11-13) and 8 Evidence-Based Reading and Writing lessons (1-8) that can be considered a core or foundational set of lessons. The remaining Math, Evidence-Based Reading and Writing, and Essay lessons allow for broader coverage and deeper instruction.

You can adapt the lesson structure based on how often your program meets and for what length of time.

For an 8-week SAT program that meets 5 days per week, we suggest alternating the Math and Evidence-Based Reading and Writing lessons for days 1-4 of the week and reserving all of the day 5s (or 1/2 of the day 5s if including the Essay lessons) for independent practice on Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy.

For a 4-week program that meets 5 days per week, we suggest alternating 10 Math lessons (1,2,4-8, and 11-13) and 8 Evidence-based Reading and Writing lessons (1-8), reserving 2 days for independent practice or 2 Essay lessons.

For an SAT program meeting once or twice per week or for a program longer than 8 weeks, we suggest alternating the Math and Evidence-based Reading and Writing lessons, including practice days, for the length of the program.

The Official SAT Practice Lesson Plans for Teachers by Teachers can also be integrated into an existing Math or English Language Arts curriculum as additional skill building or explicit SAT practice.

Whether your program includes all of the lessons or just a selection, you can leverage our personalization feature to determine which lessons would be most suitable for your group of students at which time. By adding your class, you can monitor their progress and see their greatest opportunities.

Research shows that there is a positive relationship between score growth between the PSAT/NMSQT and SAT and time spent on Official SAT Practice. Twenty hours spent practicing on Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy is associated with an average 115-point score gain on the SAT--nearly double the average gain among students who did not use Official SAT Practice. For a program that meets daily for 8 weeks, only 20 minutes of practice per weeknight plus 6 independent practice days (45 minutes each) equals 12 hours of independent practice. If students practice just one additional hour per week (e.g., over the weekend) they can easily reach 20 hours of total practice. For a shorter program or one that meets less frequently, you may want to consider increasing the homework time.

An excellent way for students to become familiar with not just the content of the SAT, but also the experience of taking the SAT is to take a full length practice test. For programs of 4 weeks or more, we suggest incorporating the administration of at least three full length practice tests (one each at the beginning, middle, and end of the program) so that students can not only become familiar with various aspects of the test, but also gauge their progress as they learn and practice. For programs of fewer than 4 weeks, we suggest incorporating the administration of at least two practice tests (one at the beginning and one near the end). We recommend leaving a few days of “taper” time between the last practice test and your students’ official test day.

Not only will students get the experience of taking a full-length test, they will also get the benefit of even more personalized practice. When students take the practice tests on Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy, practice test results contribute to their personalized daily practice on Official SAT Practice.

The Official SAT Practice Lesson Plans for Teachers by Teachers assume that students are familiar with the SAT, scoring, and format and do not include a formal overview of the SAT. If your students would benefit from an overview of the SAT and its components as well information about scoring and subscores, you should direct them to sat.org or the Tips and Strategies tab of Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy. If students are totally new to the SAT Suite of Assessments, we suggest using the first 1-2 days of your program to review this information with students.

And if students are new to Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy, you may want to view this video together as a class.

The Official SAT Practice Lesson Plans for Teachers by Teachers are designed to give students the opportunity to apply the skills and concepts they have learned in their English Language Arts and math courses to educator-led SAT practice (with plenty of opportunities for independent SAT practice!). The lessons were not designed to introduce new skills or provide remediation for students who have not yet acquired these skills. Should you find that your students are struggling with a particular lesson or concept, we suggest leveraging foundational resources from your regular math or English Language Arts curriculum, additional Khan Academy resources (outside of Official SAT Practice) for math and grammar, or other web resources such as Newsela or Zinc Learning Labs for Evidence-based Reading and Writing.

The Official SAT Practice Lessons are aligned to the SAT Study Guide for Students and Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy. Both of these resources include additional sample questions and answer explanations if you’d like to enhance any of the lessons. You may want to review the related Study Guide chapters or sections of Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy before each group of lesson topics.

You can also use these resources should you find, based on practice test results or class work, that your students would benefit from additional instruction on specific topics.

Lessons often direct students to view a problem or watch a video on Official SAT Practice,so students will need a device such as a computer, laptop, or tablet and an internet connection. Significant portions of the lessons can be completed without access to a computer or internet--we recommend previewing the lessons well in advance to determine what you’ll need to print, etc.

The best way for students to use Official SAT Practice is to make sure their College Board and Khan Academy accounts are linked. This will allow Official SAT Practice to import information from previous College Board assessments such as PSAT 8/9, PSAT 10 or PSAT/NMSQT, or SAT to inform students’ personalized practice. Read here for information on how students can link their accounts.

Each lesson is approximately 45 minutes