Ramsey's Fourth Grade 'Wordmasters' First in National Competition

Woods:Acorn::Orchard:_____

It may seem like a flashback to the SATs, but for a group of Ramsey fourth graders, analogies like the one above were the key to becoming national champions.

Fourth and fifth graders from Dater School compete three times each year in the Wordmasters Challenge, a national competition that tests vocabulary and analogy skills.

Ramsey students and their fourth grade reading teachers – Deanna O’Hern, Julie Gulino, Kristine Groenveld and Jeanne Ferretti – studied 25 vocabulary words that would be used on the test for a few weeks before the exam. In February, the kids took a 20-minute test, and submitted their results to ‘Wordmasters’ for evaluation.

Ramsey’s results on the most recent exam were the highest in the nation, garnering the school a prestigious First Place title. According to Wordmasters, the Ramsey team - one of about 4,200 across the country who compete each year - scored 190 points out of a possible 200.

“The skills that they are learning with this test reinforce what we are doing in the classroom with 21st Century skills and logic comprehension,” Enrichment teacher Jennifer Borghoff said. “We are very proud of the students' performance.”

Ramsey’s top scorers on the exam were fourth graders Alex Diamond, Alexandra Zitelli, Alex Perros, Liam Nelson, Giana Russo, Annabelle Arnold, Matthew Welch, and Jacob Beckman.

According to Borghoff, only 31 students of the thousands across the country who took the Wordmasters test received a perfect score, and one was from Ramsey. Ashling Bourke, a Dater fourth grader, answered all of the questions correctly.

The vocab wizzes are not taking too much time to bask in the glory of their victory, though. Borghoff said the students and their teachers are already hard at work preparing for the next Wordmasters exam.

[If you want to test your skills, check out some of the sample analogies from the test here].

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