Victors of Verbiage: Winners Crowned in Eighth Annual Vocabulary Bowl

Etiwanda High School (CA) notches a historic sixth-straight win; Harris Road Middle School (NC) wins its first middle/elementary school national title

SAN MATEO, Calif., May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Throughout the past seven months, nearly 1 million students across North America competed to master words in Vocabulary.com's eighth annual Vocabulary Bowl. Students from 33,000 schools answered 623 million questions and mastered a collective total of 32 million words.

The results of the Bowl are now official: Etiwanda High School (EHS) climbed atop the Vocabulary Bowl's overall North American leaderboard and Division I rankings for a record sixth-straight season, comfortably clinching the title by a margin of almost 121,000 words mastered! In the middle/elementary school division, Harris Road Middle School's (HRMS) closest competitor was last year's champion, McKenzie Middle School. Ultimately, Harris Road emerged victorious after mastering 32,000 words more than it did last season!

Etiwanda and Harris Road's names will be etched into the Vocabulary Bowl's Champions Cup, and the top high schools and middle schools in each division will receive a trophy. Additionally, winners in every U.S. state and territory and Canadian province will be recognized for their Bowl achievements with championship banners. The Vocabulary Bowl is hosted by Vocabulary.com, the leading destination for improving literacy through word learning.

A sixth sense for winning
Etiwanda High School is located in Rancho Cucamonga, California, and has been a fixture at the top of the Vocabulary Bowl leaderboards since 2017. This season marks Etiwanda's sixth overall Vocabulary Bowl championship, the most of any school, extending an already remarkable winning streak for another year. The Eagles mastered 359,509 words, which also secured them their sixth California state title and every monthly champions' banner of the 2021-22 season—another impressive record to add to their long list of accolades.

Harris Road Reigns
Cabarrus County's Harris Road Middle School serves 1,500 students in Concord, North Carolina. HRMS is no stranger to the Vocabulary Bowl leaderboards, earning itself a top-ten overall finish for the past four seasons. The Patriots nearly took home the middle/elementary school title in 2021, but fell just short after an exciting race against the upstart champion, McKenzie Middle School. A similar contest between the two schools played out again this year, but Harris Road jumped out of the gate to gain an early lead that McKenzie could not overcome. In addition to its national title, Harris Road became a 3-time North Carolina state champion and mastered the second-most words out of all participants in North America!

"We are delighted to honor the outstanding achievements and exemplary efforts of each participant in this year's Vocabulary Bowl," said Paul Mishkin, CEO of IXL Learning, Vocabulary.com's parent company. "By harnessing students' competitive spirit and curious minds, schools across North America used the Bowl as a vital tool to help learners close knowledge gaps and develop literacy skills. We look forward to working with schools in engaging and creative ways to continue making an impact on learners' lives."

Vocabulary Bowl division champions
During the Vocabulary Bowl, schools also battle it out within one of three divisions based on enrollment size. The division winners are:

• Division I: Winner—Etiwanda High School (Rancho Cucamonga, California); Runner up—Harris Road Middle School (Concord, North Carolina)
• Division II: Winner—Saint Mary's Ryken High School (Leonardtown, Maryland); Runner up—DuBois Area Middle School (DuBois, Pennsylvania)
• Division III: Winner—Elise Buckingham Charter High School (Vacaville, California); Runner up—McKenzie Middle School (McKenzie, Tennessee)

Fast Facts about the 2021-22 Vocabulary Bowl:

• Total students participating: Approximately 1,000,000
• Total schools participating: 33,300+
• Total words mastered: 32,200,000+
• K-12 students from 53 U.S. states and territories and 6 Canadian provinces participated
• The 2021-22 Vocabulary Bowl season ran from October 1, 2021, through April 30, 2022
• Students earn points for their school by mastering words on Vocabulary.com
• See the full results of this season's Vocabulary Bowl here

How schools use the Vocabulary Bowl to build literacy
Vocabulary.com uses adaptive technology that tailors literacy instruction to students' unique needs. The Vocabulary Bowl gives educators a fun opportunity to further personalize instruction, boost literacy skills and inject competitive spirit into education. Teachers have used the Bowl to gamify learning by giving extra credit to classroom point leaders every week, presenting monthly awards to students who master the most words and posting results in parent newsletters to share their learners' successes. 

About Vocabulary.com
Founded in 2010, Vocabulary.com provides students with a dynamic and personalized environment to grow their vocabulary. With a dictionary that teaches over 16,000 words, Vocabulary.com makes learning and discovering new words fun with entertaining definitions and real-world examples sourced from literature and journalism. Adaptive, individualized and interactive, the platform seamlessly integrates with any school curriculum, helping students master the academic vocabulary they'll encounter in literature, textbooks and standardized tests. To date, nearly 4 million learners in 56,000 schools around the world have answered more than 7 billion questions on Vocabulary.com. Vocabulary.com joined the IXL Learning family of educational technology products in 2020.

Press Contact
Eric Bates
IXL Learning
[email protected]

SOURCE IXL Learning