http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wunderkind/?utm_source=rss A column for scrappy students Copyright 2009, Thinkmap Inc. All Rights Reserved. en Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/images/common/logo_on_white.gif http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wunderkind/?utm_source=rss Search for a word in the Visual Thesaurus word http://www.visualthesaurus.com Wunderkind http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wunderkind/2018?utm_source=rss We were thrilled to learn that sixth-grader Nicholas Rushlow of Pickerington, Ohio, who placed 17th in last spring's Scripps National Spelling Bee, is an avid user of the Visual Thesaurus. In fact, he used the Visual Thesaurus Spelling Bee (http://www.visualthesaurus.com/bee/) as a training tool in preparing for the Nationals. And now as he gets ready to compete again during this school year, he's taking advantage of our new Community Spelling Bee (http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/announcements/1996/) feature to customize his practice lists. We caught up with Nicholas and his mother Michele Rushlow to find out what it takes to be one of the nation's top spellers. Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wunderkind/2018 Wunderkind http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wunderkind/204?utm_source=rss When we ran a post called "Short Words Are Best" a few weeks ago, subscribers jammed our Inbox with comments. One in particular caught our attention: "Sure, short words are more readable, but what about the joy that comes from solving the innermost puzzle of a long word? For a linguaphile like me, the purest ecstasy arises from finding the Latin or Greek roots in a word, putting them together, and discovering the story of a word. For example, the word "peninsula" comes from "paene" and "insula," which mean "almost" and "island," respectively. So the word peninsula literally means "almost island." Sure, it's a long word, and some students may not like to read it, but the pleasure of the shape of the word and the story of its creation makes reading it worth the while." We appreciated this spirited defense of long words, plus we noticed the word "students" in the comment. So we emailed this person, a teacher obviously, to find out more about how she teaches language. Well, maybe not so obvious. Here was the reply: "You just made my day! I'm no English teacher -- I'm a high school freshman!" Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wunderkind/204