- By Cathy Moseley
- Around Town
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Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the Challenge, fifth grader Kathryn Miller earned a perfect score in the year's second meet, held in February. In the entire country only 96 fifth graders earned perfect scores. Fifth graders William Lewis and Elena Gupta also achieved outstanding results in the school's second meet. At the seventh grade level, Lucy Rogers also achieved outstanding results in the year's second meet. The students were coached in preparation for the Challenge by Cathy Moseley.
Lansing Middle School
The WordMasters Challenge is an exercise in critical thinking, which first encourages students to become familiar with a set of interesting new words (considerable 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 Challenge-analogies helps students learn to think both analytically and metaphorically. Though most vocabulary-boosting and analogy-solving activities have been created for high school students, the WordMasters materials have been specifically designed for younger students, in grades three through eight. They are particularly well suited for able and interested young people, who rise to the challenge of learning new words and enjoy the logical puzzles posed by analogies.
The WordMasters Challenge has been administered for the past 21 years by a company based in Allendale, New Jersey, which is dedicated to inspiring high achievement in American schools. The students will participate in one more meet in the coming months.
Congratulations to those not vexed by vocabulary.
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