We live in Quebec and love the questions you send each day and your game, IQ Fun Park. It helped our 4 year old do well on the OLSAT® and get into the private school we wanted him to attend. The problem is our 6 year old. He took the OLSAT® last year and didn’t do well because he had trouble concentrating. He’s going to take it again in the spring. Is he too old for IQ Fun Park? What else can I do to help him focus better when he’s tested?

Preparing for the OLSAT test in Canada

The ideal age group for IQ Fun Park is 3-6 years, so you can still play the game with him.  Just try to focus on the cards with red borders, which have the highest difficulty.  On our site next week we will post questions that go up to the 3rd grade level of difficulty, so make sure you work with him on those.

If you want to work on your son’s focusing skills, you need to build his concentration muscle. First see how long he can sit down and work on a game or workbook that he enjoys.  Once you get a baseline of how to get him to sit still and work on something. After that, try to build his concentration by pushing him to go another 5 or 10 more minutes every time.

Once he’s able to work on something for an hour, try to get him to work on something that he likes but doesn’t love for that amount of time. This is great test prep because an OLSAT® is similar to doing something he likes but doesn’t love. It’s kind of fun but it’s definitely not playing.  Keep pushing him to sit and work for an hour because that’s how long an OLSAT® takes.

Listening is another important part of the OLSAT® and you should work on your child’s ability to listen. This helps with recall what the tester said so that he can answer the questions.  Try using puppets and interactive toys to make up little stories to tell your child.  Once he has heard the whole story, ask him questions about it to build his skills of listening, remembering, and answering.  A great resource for this is StorySmarts.com which has great books that allow you to tell the story and then ask your child to tell it back.

Building up test stamina takes time. There is no way to cram for this test you need to add a little each day for weeks ahead of time.  Once you read the questions, think about how you can incorporate them into your daily life. You can do things like this at the grocery store or around the house, so that your child constantly gets to practice his skills.