The Montgomery

Academy third graders recently won highest honors in the WordMasters Challenge–a national language arts competition entered by over 220,000 students annually, which consists of three separate meets held at intervals during the school year.

Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the Challenge, and coached by Marie Williams, the school’s third graders tied for First Place in the nation in the year-end cumulative standings among 519 school teams participating at this grade level and in this division.

Four of the school’s students won highest honors for year-long individual achievement as well: Third grader Jacob Jahn, who made only one mistake in the course of the year’s three meets, was one of the seven highest-ranked third graders in the entire country in the year-end standings. His teammates Vivian Herron and Travis Thompson, each of whom only made two mistakes all year, both placed among the 20 highest-ranked third graders. Fifth grader Griffin Payne, who also made only two mistakes all year, was one of the 22 highest-ranked fifth graders nationally in his competition.

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 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 children, who rise to the challenge of learning new words and enjoy the logical puzzles posed by analogies.

left to right: Montgomery Academy students Jacob Jahn, Vivian Herron and Travis Thompson with Third grade teacher Ms. Marie Williams