Dozen Students Honored in WordMasters Competition

Framingham Public Schools recognized a dozen elementary and middle school students at the Framingham School Committee meeting this week for their high scores in the WordMasters Challenge competition.

WordMasters challenge is a national competition. The Framingham program is sponsored by the Gifted and talented (SAGE) program and is open to all students in grades 3-8.

This year, the entire student body at Cameron Middle School participated in the program. Overall, more than 1,000 students in the Framingham Public Schools participated this year.

"Students who participate master 75 interesting and rigorous vocabulary words, which are used to complete analogies expressing various kinds of logical relationships," explained Diane Modest, director of the system's SAGE program.

"Working to solve the analogies helps students learn to think both analytically and metaphorically," she said.

Framingham had three teams competing in the Gold Division, two at the elementary level and one at the middle school level.

Tuesday night, students who received the highest overall average over the course of three meets during the 2012-13 academic year were honored.

Three students received perfect scores during one of the meets.

Those students were:

• Isabela Solha-Cruz, 4th grade student at McCarthy Elementary
• Katie Ellsworth, a 5th grade student at McCarthy Elementary
• Aidan O'Leary, a 7th grade student at Walsh Middle

Honored students, besides the three perfect score students, were:

• Edie Bassett, a 3rd grade student at Barbieri Elementary
• Emma Rothwell, a 3rd grade student at Potter Road Elementary
• Atharva Weling, a 4th grade student at Hemenway Elementary
• Jennifer Enriquez, a 5th grade student at Stapleton Elementary
• Ayushi Shirke, a 6th grade student at Walsh Middle
• Peter Dustin, a 7th grade student at Walsh Middle
• Varun Tekur, a 7th grade student at Walsh Middle
• Larissa Piccard, an 8th grade student at Fuller Middle
• Eric Tarlin, an 8th grade student at Walsh Middle.

Nationally, more than 225,000 students participate in the competition.