If you want your child to do well on the SSAT, it is essential that they spend time working with, and improving their vocabulary skills. Two sections of the exam deal in part with the vocabulary, and this is an essential area to focus on.The verbal section focuses on synonyms and analogies. As you can imagine, doing well on this section relies predominantly on vocabulary knowledge. The other section is reading comprehension, which involves reading passages and answering questions. Vocabulary is also essential to doing well in this section.Fortunately, with some determination and focus, your child will be able to do better on this part of the exam. However, you must start exam preparations early. Cramming or memorizing are not the keys to success on the SSAT.An easy way to increase your child’s vocabulary skills, is to make sure they are reading a wide range of material. They should be reading books, and other types of information, that are not only at their reading level, but even above. If they like reading a particular type of genre, such as adventure, try to get them some more material that is slightly advanced from what they already read and liked. Do not underestimate the power of on-going reading to greatly increase their vocabulary level in reading comprehension score.It is also important that your child goes into the exam armed with specific strategies. For example, there are several strategies you can practice with your child that will help them in the vocabulary portions of the test. While they may not be able to preview the specific content, they can always increase their skills.Many students, when looking at possible answers, will often panic if they don’t know what a word means. The best way to deal with this is to have your child practice using what they know. This means focusing on the word or parts of a word that they already familiar with.This is a great way to rule out incorrect answers. The student knows one of the words is a potential answer, and if it does not fit into the question, they have already increased the chances of choosing the right answer.Another way to apply this strategy is to have study and preparation in prefixes and suffixes. Once a student recognizes some of the common ones, even if they don’t know the root word, they will be able to select or exclude the some of the answer choices.While taking the SSAT can be overwhelming, there are a number of practical tips that can easily improve your child’s score. The key is to start ahead of time. Using an online preparation service will give you even greater assistance. Consider online test preparation resources for even more success.