Word Voyage: Luxury Liner or Shipwreck

This year, a new web based vocabulary curriculum, called Word Voyage, was introduced in the sixth through eighth grade curriculum. Word Voyage, according to the website, is “a dynamic laboratory for students to investigate how words work. The idea is to present words to students in a format which requires them to encounter the words repeatedly, to use them in context, to examine their syllables and etymology, and to integrate the grammar concepts they learn in Language Arts and English into the sentences they write using the words. At the end of each lesson, there are challenges. Challenges are quizzes based on the material covered during the lesson. Word Voyage was first offered to the public in 2009 by Whit Symmes and co-founder Phil Wallingford. The men went to college together before starting the company. The Neersyde sat down with co-founder of Word Voyage Whit Symmes and asked him some questions regarding the program. When asked about the origins of Word Voyage , Symmes said, “A lot of schools were going to computer programs, but we also knew a lot of schools were using vocabulary workbooks, and they were tired of using workbooks, because it takes a lot of work to correct them.” Symmes continued, “ We decided to make a program to teach the students more interesting things such as Latin roots, sentence writing, and etymology.” Symmes told us that seven people work on the Word Voyage team, along with other part-time workers. The program is more popular in the seventh and eighth grades. However, Mr. Symmes has sold it up to the eleventh grade. He says, “After the midpoint in eleventh grade, Word Voyage has assisted them with SAT and ACT vocabulary scores, and is no longer necessary.” Symmes stressed how “critical” it is for “7th and 8th graders to become comfortable reading and writing high school level vocabulary. Word Voyage teaches them to break down and analyze words that they might otherwise skip over. With practice, this skill makes reading more enjoyable and efficient.” Word Voyage is a flexible software with many different settings for teachers to adjust. Says, Symmes, “When people want something changed about the program, then we can change it very quickly. We add features all year long”. In fact, most of the words the students must study on Word Voyage come from the literature the class is studying. If Word Voyage does not have a group of pre-set words for the assigned text, Symmes and his staff will make one for the teacher and load it onto Word Voyage in a matter of days. Also, teachers can adjust which sections are required for the students to complete.

Mr. Phil Wallingford, the cofounder of Word Voyage along with Mr. Whit Symmes, who we had the chance to interview, said, “Word Voyage became public in 2009. It was a new company, so at first [Word Voyage was only in ]a few schools, but “in the second year [Word Voyage] had about 20 schools,” and now, Word Voyage works with “about one hundred schools,” nine of which are from Florida.

Word Voyage costs about $18 dollars per student. The Benjamin Middle School, with about 250 students, would pay $4500 per year to avail themselves of Word Voyage’s services. In the past, Mrs. Devine, the English Department Chair for the Middle School and eighth grade English teacher, has, intricately “taken the words from the text the students are reading and included them on their daily reading quizzes” and this has been a time consuming and not particularly efficient way of teaching vocabulary in context. Mrs. Devine added that Word Voyage has also helped with the grammar lessons because teachers can integrate grammar concepts into sentence writing assignments, so the workload of grading eighty handouts on [for instance] writing compound sentences is no longer necessary- at least, not as much.” Also, Word Voyage is a very green program, using no paper instead of the workbooks. Mrs. Ponchock, the sixth grade English teacher thinks Word Voyage is helping students. When interviewed she said, “I think [Word Voyage] helps [students] to be able to see the words that, at least in sixth grade, they are seeing in their literature broken down.” All grades using Word Voyage use words from their in class readings. “Word Voyage is that extra practice that helps solidify their knowledge. It’s also wonderful because they can get almost immediate feedback from me.” Mrs. Ponchock says. “It takes a tremendous amount of time to correct the Word Voyage exercises, but in my opinion, it is all worth it to be able to help [students] on their sentence writing.” “That is the idea of teaching, to help your students succeed. And if our middle school teachers give up their free time to correct sentences, they do want us to succeed,” said an anonymous student when queried.

In addition, Word Voyage is “one of the ERB Pathways programs offered to schools to promote skills development in critical areas.” What this means is that Word Voyage is specifically designed to strengthen targeted language skills that are tested on the ERB’s Whit Symmes, however, does not have any proven statistical information about how Word Voyage helps on the ERB’s. This is because the program is still very young and has not been able to acquire this data. After this year, Symmes will “hopefully have time to compare the scores from this year to the scores from last year for statistical information on whether Word Voyage helped or not.”

The parents at the Benjamin School have some strong opinions about Word Voyage. One parent, who requested to remain anonymous, asserted that “Word Voyage in the middle school seems somewhat excessive. [Students] already have so much work. Do they need to revolve their life at school and at home around Word Voyage?” An anonymous student complaint is “When we get punishments, some teachers give us a choice between a green slip and lunch detention. Most students chose lunch detention because it stays off of their record. But when their life revolves around Word Voyage, we can’t come in for help or detention.” To this, Dr. James responded that “The idea that one’s life ‘revolves’ around completing a 50 minute assignment over two weeks which requires a student to write 6 sentences is an excellent use of hyperbole. Doing Word Voyage in no way requires that students come in for lunchtime help daily, nor is Word Voyage responsible for students’ earning detentions in another teacher’s class. Finally, isn’t there an irony in complaining that Word Voyage teachers are somehow creating a burden by offering non obligatory assistance on Word Voyage assignments at lunchtime because it keeps students from attending obligatory lunch time meetings with other teachers? Why are the students not complaining about the demands on their lunch time made by the other classes? And again, lunch time assistance on Word Voyage is an option offered by English teachers skipping their own lunches; it is not a requirement.” Some parents, however, like the idea of Word Voyage. On anonymous mother claimed, “My daughter said it helped her on the ERB’s, that some of the words were on it. I trust that the Benjamin School knows how to educate my children properly. As long as it helps my children, and the school thinks it will help other children, I am good with it.”

The students also have strong opinions about Word Voyage. One complaint is that “repeating the same thing over and over [in this case grappling with the same word in several different exercises] does not help at all’. However, Whit Symmes counters this complaint by saying that “ Word Voyage is trying to replace an old habit: skipping over unfamiliar words when reading, with a new one: breaking down words in search of meaning clues. New habits don’t happen overnight. Rather, they require lots of practice and repetition.” Another commonly heard grumble around campus is that Word Voyage is graded unfairly and is unnecessarily detrimental to students’ GPA’s. However, according to Dr. James, 7th Grade English teacher and the Middle School Curriculum Coordinator, Word Voyage is very beneficial to grades if completed: “Just like any other assignment, if you do well and complete this very rote exercise in a timely fashion, your grade is boosted. If not, it is impacted negatively.” Another harsh pejorative leveled against Word Voyage by a student who wished to remain anonymous is that it is “stupid.’ Dr. James countered that the design of“Word Voyage is in fact very intelligent. It combines the definitions of complex words and quizzes the etymology of the words in a fun-filled vocabulary activity. It also combines grammar and sentence-writing.” A last complaint about the program offered by another anonymous student is that “Word Voyage does not help [the student] remember words.’ However, according to Dr. James “ the human brain remembers words, phrases, and even math problems by repetition.” She continued, “We have to repeat things more than once for them to finally sink into our memories. Our short-term memories are notoriously short-term and can forget something, like a person’s name, in less than a second. The website changeminds.org seems to corroborate Dr.James’ claim, averring that “repetition is key to getting things into longer-term memory and hence is a key method for learning,”

Different English teachers use Word Voyage differently. Mrs. Ponchock, the sixth grade English teacher, assigns four words per week. The lesson is due every week on Friday. The challenges are due by Monday night at 8 PM. She then gets the grades back by Wednesday, usually over the grading system on Word Voyage. Dr. James, the seventh-grade English teacher, tries to keep her 6-word lesson due in the middle of the week, so students “have access to me before it is due.” The challenge is due at the same time the lesson is. She allows her students the option to come in and check their sentences with her, so when they submit them, they are perfect. For full credit, the challenge must be completed that day also. Mrs. Devine, the 8th grade English teacher, assigns 8 words due on Friday afternoons. The challenge is due Monday or Tuesday night, and she will send the challenge by Wednesday. Mrs. Devine and Mrs. Ponchock correct their sentences over the Internet, but Dr. James offers her students the option to check sentences at breaks with her, requiring that the submitted sentences be correct the first time for full credit.

Mrs. Sheehan, the Lower School English Department head and fifth grade teacher, brought the program to our school. “An alumni of Benjamin, a student of Mr. Didsbury, came back to the school and pitched the program to Mr. Didsbury. He then showed it to the Lower and Middle schools, and we decided that we wanted to use it for enrichment,” Mrs. Sheehan says. Whit Symmes, the co-founder of Word Voyage, was Mr. Didsbury’s student at the Tilton School in New Hampshire as a young man. Mr. Didsbury says, “Whit Symmes was a good student and is a great person. I had him as a student and as an advisee in the 1970s. It is great to see that he is so successful.” Mrs. Sheehan knew this and decided to give the program a try. “It was used in 2013 by the fifth grade,” Mrs. Sheehan said. This year, the middle school and the fourth grade were assigned to the program. However, the fourth grade has decided not to do the program this year, for fear of overloading the students. Mrs. Sheehan assigns the fifth grade students “five words every other week,” Sheehan says, “At the end of the two weeks, they get a quiz on the meanings of the words to reinforce them.” Just like the middle school teachers, Mrs. Sheehan has her students write compound or complex sentences on Word Voyage. “I like this especially because it not only shows the definition, but it teaches students the etymology, how to break it up, and how to use the words,” says Sheehan in praise of the program.

Neersyde reporters followed around two students during their Word Voyage process. A seventh grade girl, has her process down to a science. For several days before the unit is due, she goes to Dr. James during lunch and works while eating. She says, “I’m fueling my body while I am fueling my mind.” She completed three words on the first day, three words on the second day, and the challenge and a final check on the third day. It took her about forty minutes to complete the total lesson and challenge, and about twenty minutes to finish checking them. Dr.James, on average assigns six words over a roughly two week period.

A sixth grade boy, who has four words, does all four words on whichever morning he has time. He sits outside on the benches by the sixth grade lockers and works on Word Voyage until his friend gets to school. With a high school sibling, he gets to school every morning at seven in the morning to seven fifteen. Usually, he finishes two words per morning and then skips one day for Mrs. Ponchock to correct and then starts to work on the challenge. It takes him about twenty minutes to finish the lesson, and about fifteen to finish the challenge. He “kind of likes Word Voyage: “It’s a split mind thing. On one hand, I think it helped me a little bit on the ERB’s and helps me break down words from Tom Sawyer. On the other hand, it takes a lot of time from my free time, and one error counts for eight points on the sentence part,” he says. In Mrs. Ponchock’s class, if the students use a Word Voyage word in their class writing, they receive extra credit. “It’s a way to get them to use the words not just on the computer, but outside.” Mrs. Ponchock says.

Abigail Konopasky, with a PhD in Linguistics from Princeton University, has a page submitted on Word Voyage’s website on “Word Voyage’s long term approach to the skills behind the SAT.” The article sums up the SAT’s ideas on what to learn for the test and what strategies to apply for excelling on the English portion of this test. The first tip is to be familiar with prefixes, suffixes, and roots. Word Voyage thoroughly covers this in the Word History and Origins section so the students are very familiar with prefixes, suffixes, and roots. The students are also used to pulling apart words. The next point Konopasky brings up is that SAT prep experts mention the need to be able to determine the meaning of words when there is little or no context to help the student. Konopasky says that “this is where the Word Voyage student shines.” Word Voyage students inevitably become experts on pulling apart word etymologies to determine meaning., The student is thus used to word investigation. Another aspect of SAT preparedness that Word Voyage stresses is preparing each student to use good vocabulary in writing for the SAT. Konopasky states that “[Word Voyage’s] innovative ‘Word Meaning Up From the Roots’ component focuses the students on the root meaning of the word and how it compares to the modern definition.” The fourth point of training for the SAT’s that Word Voyage offers is that it “acces[es] a broad and extensive vocabulary within a variety of syntactical structures and contexts.” Konopasky talks about how Word Voyage accomplishes this by the teachers’ using Word Voyage’s detailed SAT list included in the program. The fifth point is recognizing the correct use of complex syntax in sentences that employ the vocabulary word. With Word Voyage, teachers are able to choose how many words the students have to use in self authored sentences featuring the vocabulary word. The teachers may also assign sentences that are simple, compound, complex, and most teachers use the sentence feature to employ different grammar rules in context.

As Dr. James said when queried about sentence assignments for Word Voyage, “The fact that we can assign sentences featuring not only the vocabulary words but grammar concepts, gives our students a fabulous opportunity to not only learn grammar concepts for their own merit, but to also put them into practice. The difference between theory and practice is dramatic. It’s the same as if I taught my students in a classroom about the fundamentals of driving, and then assumed they were ready to get out on I-95 with a car. You can’t just learn something; you have to use that information yourself, implement it to master the lesson!” The sixth and penultimate advantage that Word Voyage provides SAT takers is that the lessons vary the sentence structure in which the vocabulary words arise. Finally, Word Voyage helps in preparation for the Verbal SAT “by asking students to move fluidly through a study of the sound, the morphemes, the grammatical category, the overall meaning, the foreign source-word, the English period, and a syntactic context for a single word”

Not only does Word Voyage have many features currently, but more are expected to be added this summer. Symmes and his team in New Hampshire will completely be rearranging the lessons. Some of the new features include matching games, a new version of the challenge section, and lots of games to improve learning in a fun way. One new game Mr. Symmes is particularly fond of is entitled “Meet the Cousins,” and it features a way to learn up to ten words with all the same base roots; thus the words are “cousins.”

Even knowing that Word Voyage can strongly help students, some still refuse to believe it can help. In a recent survey of Benjamin students asked if they liked Word Voyage. 73.5 percent stated that they “hated it”, 1.7% said they “liked it a lot,” and 24.7% were “in between.” For the most part, over half the students stated that the program helped them in no way. When they replied on how long each unit took them, the answers varied from 20 minutes to a week, plus a sarcastic “5 million hours.” Dr.James when presented with this data replied that she found the survey results predictable. Unflapped, she responded that those same results would be tallied if the survey were to ask how much students liked critical writing. “Should we get rid of critical writing because students do not like to hone their skills in this regard? James queried back of The Neersyde reporter who showed her the results

Another student says that Word Voyage takes “a long time.” and adds that “when [students] go to see [their] teacher, she always has a huge line that you have to wait in. Then by the time you get to the the front of the line, lunch or school is over.” Dr. James replied that the student who had offered this observation was definitely referring to her, and that they student had clearly never stood in her line. James said that she explained that she can field 40-50 students at one lunch time, checking one sentence per student every 7-15 seconds and then going on to the next student. “It’s easy to get six sentences corrected for 50 students in one lunch. And so put in one lunch with me over two weeks or 5 minutes of several lunches over a few days and I’ll correct your sentences to perfection. or don’t come-it’s not an obligation- just an offer of assistance you may decline,” she explained.

Some students also think that certain sections of Word Voyage should be removed. One students says “Yes, I feel like all of the sections should be taken away.” Other students feel only certain sections like the old English and prefix-suffix section should be removed. Some state that the “challenge [should be taken away because] everyone used the dictionary anyways [sic].” However, some students are happy with Word Voyage. They say of the sections, “I love them all.”
Mr. Symmes acknowledged that frustration with new things is natural and most established programs in life go through an initiation period or growing pains before people become comfortable with them. Symmes added this gentle advice to students still acclimating to Word Voyage: “Just log in everyday and just do a little bit of Word Voyage everyday.” He added, “The issue is that some students wait till the last minute to do the work which makes it much harder.”

Mr. Hagy submitted some final thoughts on Word Voyage. “I love Word Voyage. I think that it’s extremely helpful not only for students in middle school, but I know they are using it in the Lower School too.” “Word Voyage is really going to make a huge difference in how students speak and write.” He closed by stating that Word Voyage is “a program, that like many programs, kids struggle with the first year, because its different and seems difficult, but the more you do it, the more you see the benefits.”