I found the following that seems to work. Is there another way of doing it that might be better?
Sub test() Dim oRng As Range Dim WrdInd As String Set oRng = Selection.Range oRng.Expand Unit:=wdParagraph Set oRng = ActiveDocument.Range( _ Start:=oRng.Start, _ End:=Selection.Start) WrdInd = oRng.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticWords) + 1 End Sub