D15 students excel in WordMasters competitions

District 15 students have racked up 37 perfect scores in WordMasters Challenge competitions this year.

The WordMasters Challenge is an exercise in critical thinking that first encourages students to become familiar with a set of interesting new words, 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 the third through eighth grades.

Annually, approximately 220,000 students enter the WordMasters Challenge, competing in three separate meets held at different intervals during the school year. So far this year, teams of fourth- and sixth-grade students from five District 15 schools participated in two meets in the Challenge's very difficult Gold Division.

In the first meet, which was held in December, 146 students from across the country earned perfect scores at the fourth-grade level, and only 45 did so at the sixth-grade level.

In the second meet, which was held in February, only 49 fourth graders and 45 sixth graders earned perfect scores.

FRANK C. WHITELEY SCHOOL

At the fourth-grade level, Elia Spyratos earned a perfect score in the year's first meet.

At the sixth-grade level, 17 students posted perfect scores in the year's first meet: Ruchi Chitgopekar, Paige Dirkes-Jacks, Stephanie Hu, Emma Liu, Pragya Malhotra, George Moe, Thomas Morel, Allison Nakazawa, Elizabeth Perez, Tarun Pothanker, Justin Ruan, Bethany Sorman, Casey Tan, Eric Wong, Kevin Wu, Mabel Zhang, and Jerry Zheng.

PLEASANT HILL SCHOOL

At the fourth-grade level, two students earned perfect scores in the year's first meet: Maegan Jong and Sam Quinn.

At the sixth-grade level, seven students earned perfect scores: Sarah Gonwa, Adam Schyvinck, Michael Rowden, Linfei Li, Lauren Kivland, Sydney Valentine, and Romil Havewala.

WINSTON CAMPUS ELEMENTARY

At the fourth-grade level, three students earned perfect scores in the first meet: Aaron Kleinschmidt, Caleb Bennett, and Sathvik Kakanuru. Also, Kyle Douglas earned a perfect score in the year's second meet.

At the sixth-grade level, Grace Mathew and Brandon Steinman earned perfect scores in the first meet.

CENTRAL ROAD SCHOOL

At the sixth-grade level, three students earned perfect scores in the year's first meet: Brooke Harrison, Kashif Javid, and Rebecca Mathew.

HUNTING RIDGE SCHOOL

At the fourth-grade level, Jennifer Tischuk earned a perfect score in the year's second meet.

-- Story submitted by Community Consolidated School District 15