Skyline Elementary School team achieves ‘Highest Honors’ in the WordMasters Challenge

A team representing Skyline Elementary School achieved “Highest Honors” in the recent WordMasters Challenge, a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 125,000 students annually. The fifth grade team scored an impressive 194 points out of a possible 200 in the second of three meets this year, placing third in the nation.

Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the WordMasters Challenge, fifth graders Calliope Campbell, Amelia Hamilton, Eli Purcell and Beck Saphire each earned a perfect score of 20 on the challenge. Nationally, only 45 fifth graders achieved this result. Other students from Skyline Elementary School who achieved outstanding results in the meet include fifth graders Tess, Cooper, Sasha, Reece, Robbie, Jagger, Mia, Caitlin, Bennett, Penny, Emily, and Josie.

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, Ind., which is dedicated to inspiring high achievement in American schools. Further information is available at the company’s website: wordmasterschallenge.com.