A team representing Paris ISD achieved Highest Honors in the recent WordMasters Challenge™—a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 125,000 students annually. The third grade team scored an impressive 173 points out of a possible 200 in the last of three meets this year, placing fourth in the nation.

The third graders also placed tenth nationally in the overall competition with a cumulative score of 499 points out of a possible 600.

Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the WordMasters Challenge™, students from Paris ISD who achieved outstanding results in the meet include Billy Foreman, Evan O’Bryan, Sterling Rains, Madelyn Williams, Caleigh Bois, Brady Blassingame, and Keziah Kuma.

Paris ISD's success in the WordMasters Challenge™ extended beyond the third grade team. Fourth grade students also participated in the prestigious national competition, demonstrating advanced vocabulary, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills while representing Wildcat Nation on a national level. Their participation contributed to another successful year for Paris ISD in one of the country's most challenging academic enrichment programs.

The students were coached in preparation for the WordMasters Challenge™ by Wendy Hamer.

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 New Jersey which is dedicated to inspiring high achievement in American schools. Further information is available at the company’s website: http://www.wordmasterschallenge.com.