West Chicago Elementary School District #33
Dr. Ed Leman, Superintendent					Board of Education
312 E. Forest Avenue West Chicago, IL 60185					Dave Barclay, President
www.wegoed33.k12.il.us					Katrine Maguire Secretary
(630) 293-6000      Fax (630) 293-6088					Sharon L. Jones
Contact:		Becky Koltz	School/Community Relations Specialist		Deborah D. Ramsey
			(630) 293-6000 ext. 201		Robert Lemon
			koltzb@wegoed33.k12.il.us		Chris Scheck
Date:	January 25, 2005				Joseph Lach

Celebrating Successes in District #33

A student representing Turner School recently won highest honors in this year's WordMasters Challenge - a national language arts competition entered by over 225,000 students annually, which consists of three separate meets held at intervals during the school year.

Competing in the very difficult Gold Division of the Challenge, fourth grader Davis Steinbrecher earned a perfect score in the year's first meet, held in December. In the entire country, only 87 fourth graders earned perfect scores. Turner students were coached by Mrs. JeanAnne Held.

Also competing in the Gold Division at the Middle School level, seventh grader Steven Duda earned a perfect score. In the entire country only 61 seventh graders earned perfect scores. In addition, seventh grader Raelene Struckmeyer achieved outstanding results in the meet. Middle School students were coached by Mr. Chuck Osborne.

The WordMasters Challenge is an exercise in critical thinking, encouraging students to become familiar with a set of interesting new words (considerably more difficult than grade level) 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 grades three through eight.

District #33 students will participate in two more meets in the coming months, and medals and certificates will be awarded in June to those who have achieved and/or improved the most in the course of the year.

For more information on this program, contact Mrs. Peg Ryan, District #33 Gifted Lead Teacher, at 293-6020 ext. 207.