EdTech Tools to Improve SAT Verbal Scores

Obviously, the SAT is crucial in college acceptance. Unfortunately this test is only becoming more and more important in college admissions thanks to rampant grade inflation. Fortunately, one easy way for students to increase SAT verbal scores is through pursuing a more diverse vocabulary. If your students are like mine, they’d rather skip over difficult words than learn them.  So, I have compiled a list of tools that make it incredibly easy to learn words that otherwise might have been skipped and ignored.

1) Professor Word
Professor Word is an application that automatically locates and defines what it considers SAT words on any website visited. Imagine every SAT word highlighted and defined on every website visited!

2) Dictionary Extensions
If you use Google Chrome, you should absolutely have the Google Dictionary extension so that you can define any word you double click on the web! There are also options for Firefox (Dictionary Tooltip) and Safari (Dictionary for Safari).
Apple computer users can also use ctrl+cmd+D while hovering over any word to define it.

3. Wordflex Touch Dictionary
Type a word into the Wordflex Touch Dictionary, and this is what you get: a beautiful tree of all its synonyms, antonyms, and derivatives. You can pull up the origin by tapping on the “orig” box on the top left of the root word, and you can pull up each of its definitions by clicking the “def” button at the base of each branch. For example, our friend learned through this app last night that “panoply” can mean “a complete suit of armor” in certain contexts—screenshot below. With its intuitive simplicity yet powerful features, Wordflex feels like what the dictionary and thesaurus were meant to be, and is the type of application that helps students learn and remember a defined word.