There are spelling bee contests in several countries, and in the U.S., the most popular is the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee – or simply, the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Can the champions from these competitions offer any spelling education to the less gifted in spelling?
Are there any tips that we can get from them, so average students can hone their spelling skills with the least amount of struggle?
There is certainly a host of tips that we can adopt from these orthographic wizards.
English, while not a language that's relatively easy to master – for instance, due to the presence of letter clusters such as consonant clusters and digraphs, which were found to pose a significant challenge to second-, third-, and fourth-grade children in a study done by Groff (1986) – is also not as inconsistent or tough as widely believed.
Kessler (2003) points out that spelling consistency is increased significantly if one takes into account "the position of the phoneme within the syllable and the identity of the phonemes in the environment".
There exist patterns that can be studied for spelling education, and of course a few simple "secrets of the trade" that spelling champs are privy to – but which you can now learn about.
Sai Gunturi, 2003's spelling champ from Texas, says that studying Latin in school helped him a lot during competition.
For example, knowing that the letter 'k' is not usually found in words of Latin origin, he would, naturally, know not to spell a Latin-originating word with a 'k' (U.S. Kids, 2003). Simple, right? But extremely helpful.
Aishwarya Pastapur, the 2007 topnotch speller, shares that a word's definition is what helps her find the correct spelling.
Another one of her best strategies is to ask as many questions as she can (Geisler, 2007). Doing so would give her clues to the root word, and for her, the meaning of the root word is the definition.
Another spelling education tip she sagely shares is to ask for the word's etymology, or the history of a word, just as Gunturi does, in order to get the word's country of origin.
She also asks for the part of speech, as that lead helps determine suffixes.
David Tidmarsh, Spelling Bee Champ for 2004, has an odd but perfectly logical habit of writing the words out with the tip of his finger. He says, "I think I learn better when I see things in print or maybe even write something out or type it out" (Johnston, 2004).
Tidmarsh is aware of his being a visual learner, and takes advantage of that knowledge.
The popular Ultimate Spelling software, a computer spelling program that includes photos aside from the written word and its applications, is the perfect aid for visual learners like Tidmarsh.
You can download the Ultimate Spelling software directly onto the computer you use for studying, brush-up on tricky words even when you're on the go, and feel like a spelling bee champ when challenged by friends.
References:
Geisler, L 2007. Bee winner a repeat champ. Topeka Capital. [internet] 25 March. Available at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_20070325/ai_n18756367/ [Accessed 9 July 2010].
Groff, P 1986, 'The spelling difficulty of consonant letter clusters', Educational Research, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 139-141.
Hope, J 2006. Hope for millions as scientists find 'cure' for dyslexia. Daily Mail. [internet] 30 June. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-413354/Hope-millions-scientists-cure-dyslexia.html [Accessed 7 July 2010].
Johnston, L 2004. Boy wins bee with 'autochthonous', CBS News website, viewed 9 July 2010, < http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/03/national/main620971.shtml>.
Kessler, B 2003, 'Is English spelling chaotic? Misconceptions concerning its irregularity', Reading Psychology, vol. 24, nos. 3 & 4, pp. 267-289.
'Tips from the top speller' 2003, U.S. Kids, vol. 16, no. 5, p. 14.