What’s the best present to get a group of middle schoolers who have just learned a ton of new words? How about $500 worth of books? Thanks to students' improved vocabularies, they’ll be even better able to enjoy and understand reading than they were before.

That at least was the thinking of Warren Goetzel, Coordinator of Media Services for the Atlanta Public Schools. When it came to his attention that close to 200 students at Sutton Middle School were mastering at least 30 words a week, he decided to reward them with a generous allocation that will provide new books for the school’s media center.

But as pleased as everyone at Sutton is about the recognition, that’s not what’s keeping the kids playing. "It’s the competition," says language and literature teacher Nina Edelstein. "The kids get really excited about how many points they have and how many points someone else has, and which class period is beating another class period. I don’t even give awards for who is on the top – they just get excited about it on their own."

Edelstein first brought Vocabulary.com to her students in the fall of this year. After the Atlanta Public Schools purchased the Educator Edition, Vocabulary.com became even easier for Edelstein to use. "That was great for me,” she reported. "Then I could track how students were doing much more easily."

Her students are assigned to learn word lists that follow along with the novels they're reading in their literature classes — mastering lists of approximately 30 words as part of their homework for a week. They're also exploring other ways of learning on the site, quizzing themselves on the Spelling Bee, or playing Vocabulary.com with words selected for their vocabulary level by the game. "Some kids are tackling the SAT word list. They enjoy challenging themselves," Edelstein said.

And some kids are just going for glory. "In one class I had three boys in competition with each other. One came in on a Monday and told me he played Vocabulary.com all weekend. Day and night! He wanted to be number one. And he was."

Meanwhile, Edelstein can already see the difference in the way kids retain what they are learning. "Before, they would study vocabulary words and find the definitions, but the next week they wouldn’t remember them. Now they really remember the definitions. It amazes me. I'm thrilled."