Speyer Third Graders Place Third in the Nation in the 2018-19 WordMasters Challenge™!

"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do." Thomas Jefferson. Knowing the power of words is one of the many skills Speyer students learn…you could even call them WordMasters. That nickname would be quite appropriate, as Speyer students placed FIRST in the nation in the latest WordMasters Challenge and THIRD nationally in the culmulative year-long competition!  

Yes, a team representing Speyer recently earned Highest Honors in the 2018-19 WordMasters Challenge™! WordMasters is a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 150,000 students annually. It’s 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.

Speyer’s third grade team scored an impressive 192 points out of a possible 200 in the last of three meets this year, placing FIRST in the nation. And for the overall competition, our third graders also placed THIRD nationally in the overall competition with a cumulative score of 543 points out of a possible 600!

Competing in the very difficult Gold Division of WordMasters, third graders Una Joy H., Raina M., and Alessandro R., and fourth grader Alex A. each earned a perfect score of 20 in the recent meet. Nationally, only 15 third graders and 55 fourth grader achieved this result. Other students at Speyer who achieved outstanding results in the last meet of the year include third graders Nathaniel B., Oliver B., Eleanor B-C, Charlie G., Julian S., and Ryan W., and fourth grader Sam Z.!

Third graders Raina M. (57 cumulative points out of a possible 60) and Alessandro R. (56 points) also earned individual Highest Honors in the overall competition. Highest Honors are reserved for students who place among the top 10-15 students in their division!

Huge congrats to all of our WordMasters in third and fourth grade as well as our fabulous faculty!