St. John’s scores big in annual WordMasters Challenge™

TAMPA, FL (June 2, 2020)—Several students representing St. John’s Episcopal Parish Day School recently received a perfect score in the last of three meets in this year’s WordMasters Challenge™—a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 125,000 students annually.

Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the WordMasters Challenge™, fifth-graders Sophia Friess and Sebastian Marulanda, seventh-graders Kenzie Cappy, Olivia Haynes, and Jude Whittlesey, and eighth-graders Noelle Booth and Luke Osborne each earned a perfect score of 20 on the recent challenge. Nationally, only 86 fifth graders, 63 seventh graders, and 66 eighth graders achieved this result. Other students from St. John’s Episcopal Parish Day School who achieved outstanding results in the meet include: third-grader Emerson Milazzo; fifth-graders Oliver Bailey, Hayes Corcell, Tanner Corral, Katie Hoar, Oliver Lacktman, Breanna Lopez, Chloe Saldin and Izzy Schepps; sixth-graders Lexie Mehr, Abigail Miller, Lucas Ruan, and Mikayla Valdes; and seventh-graders AC Hutton, Rivers Kurland, and Drew Powell.

Fifth graders Sophia Friess (59 points), Breanna Lopez (58 points), and Sebastian Marulanda (58 points) also earned Individual Highest Honors in the overall competition with a cumulative score of 59 out of a possible 60 points. Highest Honors are reserved for students who place among the top 10-15 students in their division.

The students were coached in preparation for the WordMasters Challenge™ by teachers Chris Friedrich (3rd), Marianne Paras (3rd), Fred Tirella (3rd), Michael Salzer (4th), McKay Hubbell (5th), Ricky Fisher (6th), Dr. Carole Byrd (7th), and Lesley DeOrio (8th).

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 on the company’s website:  http://www.wordmasterschallenge.com.