Several teams representing Louise Archer Elementary achieved Highest Honors in the recent WordMasters Challenge™—a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 150,000 students annually. The third grade team scored an impressive 180 points out of a possible 200 in the first of three meets this year, placing fourth in the nation. In addition, the fourth grade team scored 192 points out of 200 on the first meet, also placing fourth in the nation. Finally, the team of fifth graders from Louise Archer Elementary finished in fourth place nationwide with a score of 193 points.

Competing in the very difficult Gold Division of the WordMasters Challenge™, fourth graders Adrian Banihashemi, Aman Jha and Ava Liu, and fifth graders Lauren Alferis, Cormac Kaplan and Samra O’Beirne each earned a perfect score of 20 on the challenge. Nationally, only 58 fourth graders and 54 fifth graders achieved this result. Other students from Louise Archer Elementary who achieved outstanding results in the meet include third graders Claire Dorney, Kallipe Gonos and Peyton Reed, fourth graders Ethan Chichka, Max Harr-Robins, Stella Hong, Jeremy Huang, Daisy Lin and Sonya Rooney, and fifth graders Isabel Buescher, Mary Cate Callender, Liana Carr, Logan Foote, Valerie Lai, Alma Moya Llinas and Ramsey Warner. The students were coached in preparation for the WordMasters Challenge™ by Meghan McGrath, JoAnn Smith, and Katie Savage, (3^rd) , Christine Fish, Anne Marie Harris, and Meredith Everett (4^th), and Sue Rutherford, Anna Marie Franks, Tracy Resnick, Alysa Ruminski, and Kristen Toth (5^th).

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.