Fourth Grade Wins National Vocabulary Challenge

The Class of 2030 has been named the national champion in the Gold Division of the WordMasters Challenge™, an annual national vocabulary competition involving nearly 125,000 students. The fourth-grade team scored a perfect 200 points in the last of the three competition meets this year, for a final cumulative score of 568 out of a possible 600 points – placing them first in the nation!

“This group had the resolve to triumph from the moment I introduced the program,” said Lauren Fischer, one of the fourth-grade teachers who coached the boys. “Collectively, the Class of 2030 has a real gift for critical thinking. I hope these boys will continue growing that problem-solving ability, their growth mindsets, and the camaraderie they built through their team effort.”
 
Five members of the Class of 2030 earned Highest Honors for scoring perfect and near-perfect scores throughout the year: D.R. Avila, Elliot Harder, Zachary Liaw (60 out of a possible 60 points), Mason Coyle, and Taylor Majumder (58 points). Fourteen members of the Class earned special recognition for earning a perfect score of 20 in the most recent meet (a feat achieved by only 46 students nationwide): Samuel Adeoye, Muyi Ajagunna, Cooper Allen, Nathan Aurora, D.R. Avila, Liam Calder, Jack Coker, Mason Coyle, Cameron Douglass, John Griggs, Andre Hamghalam, Elliot Harder, Ryan Jarratt, and Zachary Liaw. 

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.

Watch the video below to see the moment the boys learned they were National Champions!