Paris ISD Students Achieved Highest Honors In WordMasters Challenge

Back Row: Lila Severson, Ava Booth, Kristen Cunningham, Clara Gibbs, Maeleigh Day, Reed Hartman, and Kane Kozel

Not Pictured: Kayto Bonds

A team representing Paris ISD achieved Highest Honors in the recent WordMasters Challenge™—a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 125,000 students annually. The fourth-grade team scored an impressive 189 points out of a possible 200 in the second of three meets this year, placing fourth in the nation.

Competing in the Blue Division of the WordMasters Challenge™, fourth-graders Ava Booth, Arianna Gonzalez, and Reed Hartman earned a perfect 20 on the challenge. Nationally, only 37 fourth graders achieved this result. Other students from Paris ISD who completed outstanding results in the meet include third-graders Emma Donnan, Will Foreman, and Jazmine Hickson, and fourth-graders Noah Cunningham, Maeleigh Day, Clara Gibbs, and Lila Severson. The students were coached in preparation for the WordMasters Challenge™ by Tammy King.

The WordMasters Challenge™ is an exercise in critical thinking that encourages students to become familiar with a set of interesting new words (considerably more complex than grade level). It 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, the exercise is designed for use by high school students. They specifically created WordMasters Challenge™ materials 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.

A company based in Indianapolis, Indiana, administers the WordMasters Challenge™ program, which they dedicate to inspiring high achievement in American schools. Further information is available at the company’s website:  http://www.wordmasterschallenge.com.