News release from the Milton Public Schools
A team representing the fourth grade at Collicot School earned Highest Honors in the 2012-13 WordMasters Challenge™—a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 150,000 students annually. The students scored an impressive 185 points out of a possible 200 in the last of three meets this year, placing seventh in the nation. In addition, the fourth grade team at Collicot School placed fifth nationally in the overall competition, earning 552 of a possible 600 points in the three meets combined.
Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the WordMasters Challenge™, fourth graders Kate McDonald and Benjamin Mills and fifth grader Kate Delaney each earned a perfect score of 20 in the competition’s third and final meet. Nationally, only 44 fourth graders and 155 fifth graders achieved this result.
Other students from Collicot School who achieved outstanding results in the meet include fourth graders Saoirse Killion, Preston Luie and Bryana Riordan, and fifth graders Mary Kate Fox, Bridget Gallagher, Jackson Humphreys, and Clarissa Waldmann. The students were coached in preparation for the WordMasters Challenge™ by Anne Kelley, Jackie LaMonica, Julie Ostrowski, John Doyle, Christine Hodgkins, Brenda Rogers, Joan Dow, Anna Higgins, Anne McIntyre, and Jessica Murphy.
The WordMasters Challenge™ is an exercise in critical thinking that first encourages students to become familiar with a set of interesting new words (considerably harder than grade level), and then challenges them to use those words to complete analogies expressing various kinds of logical relationships. Working to solve the analogies helps students learn to think both analytically and metaphorically. Although most vocabulary enrichment and analogy-solving programs are designed for use by high school students, WordMasters Challenge™ materials have been specifically created for younger students in grades three through eight. They are particularly well suited for children who are motivated by the challenge of learning new words and enjoy the logical puzzles posed by analogies.
The WordMasters Challenge™ program is administered by a company based in Indianapolis, Indiana, which is dedicated to inspiring high achievement in American schools. Further information is available at the company’s website: http://www.wordmasterschallenge.com.