6th Grader Earns Perfect Score on WordMasters Challenge

Da Vinci Academy sixth grade student Sam Bartusek won highest honors in the April 2009 WordMasters Challenge, a national language arts competition entered by 230,000 students annually in grades three through eight.

Competing in the difficult Gold Division, Bartusek earned a perfect score and was one of only 68 sixth graders nationally who achieved at this level. Bartusek and other Da Vinci middle school students were coached in preparation for the contest by language arts teacher Marge Uhlarik-Boller.

The WordMasters Challenge requires critical thinking skills as students learn new vocabulary words and complete analogies expressing logical relationships between the words. Working to solve the Challenge analogies helps students think analytically and metaphorically. The Challenge has been administered for the past 22 years by a company based in Allendale, New Jersey.