New Book to Help Kids Whiz Their Way To a Better Vocabulary
Kaplan Publishing Introduces The Word Whiz's Guide To Texas Elementary School Vocabulary

Learning Activities for Parents and Children Featuring 400 Must-Know Words for the TAAS and Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills Through 5th Grade

 I live in, you guessed it, San Antonio, TX. I am a NASCAR fanatic, a pretty good soccer player, and a vocabulary whiz kid. You name the word, I know its definition. - Sam Antonio, on the origin of his moniker, The Word Whiz

Press Contact:
Lori Duggan Gold, PR Manager for Kaplan Publishing, 212-492-5903, lori_duggangold@kaplan.com. Review copies are available upon request. Please contact Lori DeGeorge at lori.degeorge@kaplan. simonandschuster.com or by phone at 212-698-1272.
 
Meet the Word Whiz! This humorous word-loving character offers middle school students a fresh new approach to building a strong vocabulary.

 
(New York, August 2001) The vocabulary of an average 6 to 14-year old American child has dropped from 25,000 words in 1945 to a startling 10,000 today. But a new character and book series from Kaplan Publishing takes aim at this pressing issue. Sam Antonio (a.k.a. "The Word Whiz"), introduced this month by Kaplan/Simon & Schuster in The Word Whiz's Guide to Texas Elementary School Vocabulary (ISBN: 0-7432-1100-6, price $7.50), plans to change all that. This humorous, word-loving character offers parents a variety of irresistible word games and loads of practical advice to help reinforce the vocabulary words Texas students need to know.

Why is a good vocabulary so important? Many educators cite poor vocabulary skills as one of the primary obstacles to school success and high performance on the TAAS. Handicapped by a limited vocabulary, students struggle to understand what they read and do not have the words to articulate what they know. Chances are good that if a student doesn't understand what the question is asking, he or she cannot supply the correct response. An improved vocabulary will raise both grades and test scores, not to mention get grandparents to sit up and take notice that their grandchild did not dangle a participle and can use a more descriptive adjective than "cool"!

The Word Whiz's Guide-designed to be used by students along with their parent or teacher-is wittily illustrated and filled with fun activities and games based on sports, movies, tv, and music trends. These are far from the vocabulary drills of the past. These activities encourage creativity, artistic expression, teamwork and a sense of humor while helping students master the words they will see and hear in class every day. In the sample activity below, the words Texas students must know are in italics:

Car Shape Game

No, it's not about the shapes of cars, it's a shape game you can do when you're in the car. The next time you and your student are in the car together, start calling out geometric shapes. Tell your student to find a real-world example of each shape. Start with something easy, like "octagon." All Stop signs are octagons. Go to triangle, rectangle, trapezoid, etc. Tell him to look for the shapes in street signs, architecture, windows, and billboards. He probably won't be able to see them all on a normal drive, but if you play the game often enough, your student will know his polygons much better.

The thing is, even if your student gets one wrong, or he just can't find a parallelogram, he is still thinking and trying to figure out the shapes he sees. For example, you may call out "equilateral triangle" and he may try to get away with an isosceles triangle-- thereby reinforcing isosceles in the process!

The Word Whiz Guide is jam-packed with nearly 400 vocabulary words that students encounter daily in their Texas elementary school classes. Here are just a few essential words:

English-Language Arts: narrator, opinion, scene, antonym, motivation
Math: average, volume, numerator, intersect, rhombus, (Remember the rhombus? It's that tilted square.)
History-Social Science: equator, consequences, citizen, minority, tyranny
Science: mammal, atmosphere, soluble, condensation, habitat
The Word Whiz Guide is filled with entertaining word games designed to deepen a student's understanding of key words. Examples of games include a treasure hunt in a local library, 3-D drawings of video games, and an inventory of the eco-friendly elements in your home. Complete with a "featured word list", this book is a great resource for parents who want to help with homework but can't remember what a denominator is. And, if you love flashcards, check out Sam Antonio's tips for really awesome ones.

To learn more about this title: Click Here

The Word Whiz's Guide to Texas Elementary School Vocabulary is part of Kaplan's new Word Whiz series for elementary and middle school students in California, Texas, New York, and Florida. A national edition will be released in January 2002. Word Whiz is available wherever books are sold.

About the Author: Chris Kensler is the author of several books, including Study Smart Junior, which received the Parent's Choice Award, as well as Kaplan's SAT Verbal Velocity and SAT Math Mania. He has been a writer/editor for a daytime drama publication, a content director for a group of web sites, and is currently editor of an art magazine.

BOOK INFORMATION
THE WORD WHIZ'S GUIDE TO TEXAS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL VOCABULARY
Pub date: September 2001, Size and page count: 6" x 9" and 64 pages
ISBN: 0-7432-1100-6, Price: $7.50
Also available: The Word Whiz's Guide to Texas Middle School Vocabulary (ISBN: 0-7432-1106-5, Price $8.00.)

About Kaplan Publishing: Kaplan Publishing, a division of Kaplan's Test Prep and Admissions business, is a joint venture between Kaplan, Inc. and Simon & Schuster. In 2000, Kaplan Publishing released 71 new titles in the areas of test preparation, admissions, education, and career development. Books are offered in traditional paper form or pre-packaged with computer software. Select titles are also available as e-books. Kaplan, Inc. has emerged as a leader in statewide assessment services through its publishing venture with the release of 24 new state test titles in 2000. In addition, Kaplan has forged relationships with schools and school districts to prepare students for state tests and to offer professional development for teachers and administrators through its K12 Learning Services Division. Kaplan, Inc. is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO.)