If you see Bellwood-Antis fifth grader Troy McCrum wish him godspeed and prosperity for his trip to Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, PA, tomorrow.
\nDon\u2019t worry \u2013 he\u2019ll understand what you\u2019re talking about.
\nTroy is the lone finalist from the Northern Blair County Region in the first annual Reader\u2019s Digest Word Power Challenge, an education contest designed to filter out the best vocabulary students in the country.
\n\u201cWhen I first looked at the words, I thought to myself that no one would advance,\u201d said Kathy Young, a fifth-grade teacher at B-A and also the organizer of the program. \u201cI was surprised that so many students knew and understand what some of these words were. I didn\u2019t even know a few of them.\u201d
\nWhat is gibberish? What does bamboozeled mean? How about Hullabaloo or Vernacular?
\nThese were the types of questions more than a hundred students saw during the preliminary testing for the contest.
\nAccording to Young, the top two sections in fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades each were administered the test. Forty questions were given, and included word association and definition recognition.
\nAfter the scores were calculated, the top six in each section were offered another 40-question quiz, only this time more challenging. According to Young, Reader\u2019s Digest set the standard for \u201cpassing\u201d during this round.
\n\u201cIt was a tough challenge, even for the eighth graders,\u201d said Young, referencing the second quiz. \u201cBut Troy came out ahead. Now he\u2019s moving on.\u201d
\nThe journey continues when Troy leaves for the state competition scheduled for tomorrow at Washington and Jefferson.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re really excited for him,\u201d said Young. \u201cHe\u2019s a great student with straight As nearly across the board. He\u2019s also well read and English is his strongest subject. I think this is going to give him the advantage he needs once he gets there.\u201d
\nYoung said the competition in Washington will be set-up a little differently than the pencil and paper tests taken at Bellwood-Antis. Competing will be the top 100 qualifiers in the state.
\n\u201cThere, it will be kind of like a Spelling Bee,\u201d said Young. \u201cThe students, I believe, will be defining words after being dictated by a panel of judges.\u201d
\nShould Troy advance again, he will travel, all expenses paid, to the national-level competition in March in Colonial Williamsport, Va. Reader\u2019s Digest is offering a total of $50,000 in scholarships.
\n\u201cI just hope he goes as far as I believe he can,\u201d said Young.
\nDespite being the first year of the program, Young said she believes it can be a great educational tool for the students for years to come.
\n\u201cThe teachers here really enjoyed administering the program and the kids had a lot of fun with it,\u201d she said. \u201cI would like to do it again next year and maybe bring the fourth grade classes on board.\u201d
\nOh, and by the way, gibberish is a bunch of nonsense; bamboozeled is to deceive; hullaballo is much ado about something; and vernacular means everday language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you see Bellwood-Antis fifth grader Troy McCrum wish him godspeed and prosperity for his trip to Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, PA, tomorrow. Don\u2019t worry \u2013 he\u2019ll understand what you\u2019re talking about. Troy is the lone finalist from the Northern Blair County Region in the first annual Reader\u2019s Digest Word Power Challenge, an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}