NOTRE DAME PREP WORDSMITHS EARN HIGHEST HONORS

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May 22, 2026

For information on admission to Notre Dame Prep, please click here.

Middle school students continue long record of strong performance in national vocabulary competition. In January, two teams from NDP also finished in top 10.

Two teams representing Notre Dame Prep’s middle school achieved Highest Honors in the recent WordMasters Challenge™ — a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 125,000 students annually. The seventh-grade team scored an impressive 161 points out of a possible 200 in the last of three meets this year, placing eighth in the nation. In addition, the eighth-grade team scored 164 points, also finishing eighth nationwide.

In addition, the seventh graders placed eighth nationally in the overall competition with a cumulative score of 491 points out of a possible 600, and the eighth-grade team captured ninth place overall with 483 points.

Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the WordMasters Challenge, all of the Notre Dame Prep students were coached in preparation for the competition by Kelly Simon, who teaches sixth-grade reading and writing and eighth-grade English; Christine Boan, who teaches seventh-grade writing and eighth-grade reading; and Deirdre Schiefer, who teaches sixth-grade writing and seventh-grade reading.

Students from NDP’s middle school who achieved outstanding results in the meet included eighth grader Olin Platt.

The WordMasters Challenge is an exercise in critical thinking that first encourages students to become familiar with a set of interesting new words (considerably harder than grade level), and then challenges them to use those words to complete analogies expressing various kinds of logical relationships.  Working to solve the analogies helps students learn to think both analytically and metaphorically.  Although most vocabulary enrichment and analogy-solving programs are designed for use by high school students, WordMasters Challenge™ materials have been specifically created for younger students in grades three through eight.  They are particularly well suited for children who are motivated by the challenge of learning new words and enjoy the logical puzzles posed by analogies.

The WordMasters Challenge program is administered by a company based in New Jersey which is dedicated to inspiring high achievement in American schools.  Further information is available at the company’s website:  http://www.wordmasterschallenge.com.

For information on admission to Notre Dame Prep, please click here.

Comments or questions? mkelly@ndpma.org

About Notre Dame Preparatory School
"At Notre Dame Prep, we inspire our students to become the best versions of themselves. We challenge them through an experience of academic excellence, focused on active, project-based learning. We invite them to explore a world of opportunities beyond the classroom. We guide them as they grow in spirituality within a community strong in its Catholic and Marist identity."

Notre Dame Preparatory School is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. Notre Dame Preparatory School's upper school enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame Prep's middle and lower schools enroll students in pre-kindergarten through grade eight. All three schools are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." NDP is conducted by the Marist Fathers and Brothers and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the National Association of Independent Schools. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School, visit the school’s home page at www.ndpma.org.