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About the Publisher
Spelling Bee Ninja This manual is proudly brought to you by the authors of the first Spelling Bee training system: Spelling Bee Ninja. Our aim is to provide the most comprehensive spelling bee resources and methods to all the students willing to master and win spelling bee competitions. Good Luck!!!
@Spelling_Ninja
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Table of Contents Section 0: Introduction.................................................................................................................. 10 0.0 Copyright Notice.............................................................................................................. 11 0.1 Purpose and recipients of this manual............................................................................ 12 0.2 What will you learn from this manual............................................................................. 12 0.3 Where to find the latest edition manual......................................................................... 13 0.5 Sections overview............................................................................................................ 13 0.4 How to read this manual................................................................................................. 14 0.5 We need your help and feedback....................................................................................14 Section 1: Spelling Bee Basics........................................................................................................ 16 1.1 Introduction to the Spelling Bee......................................................................................17 1.2 History of Spelling Bee in the USA................................................................................... 19 1.3 Brief Historical Timeline of Spelling Bee..........................................................................21 1.4 The Scripps Spelling Bee.................................................................................................. 22 1.4.1 Scripps National Spelling Bee Competition Format..............................................22 1.4.2 Qualifying Regional Competitions........................................................................ 22 1.4.3 National Competition Format...............................................................................23 1.5 Popular spelling bees around the world..........................................................................25 1.5.1 Scripps National Spelling Bee................................................................................25 1.5.2 South Asian Spelling Bee.......................................................................................26 1.5.2.1 Global broadcast........................................................................................26 1.5.2.2 Registration................................................................................................26 1.5.2.3 Road to the South Asian Spelling Bee finals.............................................. 26
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1.5.3 Indian Spelling Bee................................................................................................28 1.5.3.1 Who can participate?.................................................................................28 1.5.3.2 Spelling bee rounds................................................................................... 28 1.5.3.3 Registration for India Spelling Bee.............................................................28 1.5.3.4 How the Indian Spelling Bee works........................................................... 29 1.5.4 Spelling Bee of Canada..........................................................................................30 1.5.4.1 SBOC categories......................................................................................... 30 1.5.4.2 SBOC Prizes................................................................................................ 30 1.5.4.3 The different stages of the Spelling bee of Canada...................................31 1.5.5 European PTA........................................................................................................32 1.5.6 UNC Adult Spelling Bee.........................................................................................32 1.5.7 The Japan Spelling Bee..........................................................................................33 1.5.7.1 Purpose of the Japan Times Bee................................................................33 1.5.7.2 Registration and enrollment......................................................................33 1.5.7.3 Competition rules...................................................................................... 34 1.5.8 African Spelling Bee.............................................................................................. 35 1.5.8.1 Participating countries...............................................................................35 1.5.9 Mexican MEXTESOL Spelling Bee..........................................................................36 1.5.9.1 Registration for Mexican MEXTESOL Spelling Bee.................................... 36 Section 2: Preparing for Spelling Bee.............................................................................................37 2.2.1 Spelling Bee preparation.......................................................................................37 2.2.7 Building a Winning Strategy..................................................................................39 2.2.2 How to spell in English Language?........................................................................42 2.2.3 Useful Technique to Help You Spell a Difficult Word........................................... 42 2.2.4 Common Spelling Rules........................................................................................ 46 2.2.5 How to prepare for Spelling Bee? ........................................................................48 2.2.6 Useful Preparation Tips.........................................................................................51 Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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2.2.8 Practicing for Spelling Bee.................................................................................... 53 2.2.9 How to face a Spelling Bee................................................................................... 56 2.2.10 Preparing for spelling bee when it’s late............................................................ 59 2.2.11 Organize a mock spelling bee at your school..................................................... 62 Section 3: Training with Spelling Bee Ninja................................................................................... 66 3.1 Introduction to SBN......................................................................................................... 67 3.1.1 Spelling Bee Ninja................................................................................................. 67 3.1.2 How SBN works.....................................................................................................69 3.2 Using Spelling Bee Ninja.................................................................................................. 70 3.2.1 Starting with SBN.................................................................................................. 70 3.2.2 Creating an account.............................................................................................. 70 3.2.3 Managing your account........................................................................................ 71 3.2.4 Free and paid features..........................................................................................73 3.2.4 Redeem your code................................................................................................74 3.2.3 Creating a student.................................................................................................74 3.2.3.1 Local Students............................................................................................75 3.2.3.2 Invited Students.........................................................................................75 3.2.3.3 Student Profile........................................................................................... 77 3.2.4 Spelling Tests........................................................................................................ 78 3.2.4.1 Spelling test options.................................................................................. 78 3.2.4.2 Report Cards.............................................................................................. 81 3.2.4.4 Error List.....................................................................................................82 3.2.4.3 Student statistics card................................................................................82 3.2.4.4 Smart Trainer............................................................................................. 83 3.2.4.5 Learning Spelling Tests...............................................................................84 3.2.4.6 Review Spelling Tests.................................................................................84 3.2.4.7 Reset the Smart Trainer.............................................................................85 Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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3.2.4.8 Training strategy using the smart trainer.................................................. 86 3.2.4.9 Official Spelling Tests................................................................................. 87 3.2.4.10 Rankings and Certificates of Achievement.............................................. 87 3.2.4.11 How Official Spelling Tests score is calculated........................................ 88 3.2.5 Spelling Words lists............................................................................................... 91 3.2.6 My Words section................................................................................................. 91 3.2.7 Working with spelling lists.................................................................................... 93 3.2.7.1 Create and delete a Spelling List................................................................93 3.2.7.2 Viewing and Editing lists............................................................................ 94 3.2.7.3 Add and import words to a list.................................................................. 95 3.2.7.4 Remove words from a list..........................................................................96 3.2.7.5 Cloning a Spelling List................................................................................ 97 3.2.7.7 Flash cards..................................................................................................98 3.2.7.8 Take a Spelling test using a specific list..................................................... 99 3.2.7.9 Embed a list into a web page...................................................................100 3.2.8 Featured Lists......................................................................................................101 3.2.9 Spelling Bee Search Engine................................................................................. 101 3.2.10 Spelling Bee Word Card.................................................................................... 103 Section 4: Practical guides........................................................................................................... 104 4.1 Introduction................................................................................................................... 105 4.2 How to start your spelling bee training......................................................................... 106 4.2.1: Getting familiar with the competition itself...................................................... 106 4.2.2: Preparing a well planned spelling bee training schedule.................................. 107 4.2.3: Learning the spelling bee word lists.................................................................. 108 4.2.4: Isolating the difficult words............................................................................... 109 4.2.5: Making a custom list with the isolated words...................................................110 4.2.6: Using flashcards to learn the spelling bee words..............................................111 Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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4.2.7: Diving deeper into the spelling bee words with etymology .............................112 4.2.8: Trying out online spelling tests..........................................................................113 4.2.9: Determining how prepared you are.................................................................. 113 4.3 How to increase your chances of winning the Spelling Bee..........................................114 4.3.1 Use the proper resources................................................................................... 115 4.3.2 Practice makes the perfect speller..................................................................... 116 4.3.3 Train smart and give online tests to know where you stand............................. 117 4.3.4 Give emphasis on the difficult words................................................................. 118 4.3.5 Have a good rest the day prior to the event...................................................... 119 4.3.6 Don’t get intimidated by long words..................................................................120 4.3.7 Don’t rush your answers if you want to win the spelling bee............................121 4.3.8 Overcoming the fear of public speaking.............................................................122 4.4 SBN Spelling tools quick overview................................................................................. 123 4.4.1 The Spelling Bee Ninja website ..........................................................................123 4.4.2 - Spelling words lists........................................................................................... 124 4.4.3 - Featured word lists........................................................................................... 125 4.4.4 - Spelling search engine...................................................................................... 126 4.4.5 - Spelling Test and Smart Trainer........................................................................127 4.4.6 - Error List............................................................................................................128 4.4.7 - Spelling flashcards ........................................................................................... 128 4.5 Words Lists and flashcards reference guide..................................................................129 4.5.1 Why use flashcards?........................................................................................... 129 4.5.2 Redirecting to the Spelling Bee Ninja App..........................................................130 4.5.3 Signing in.............................................................................................................131 4.5.4 Redirecting to the ‘My Spelling Lists’ section..................................................... 132 4.5.5 Creating custom spelling words lists.................................................................. 133 4.5.6 Giving the custom word list a name................................................................... 134 Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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4.5.7 Entering the words in the list..............................................................................135 4.5.8 Using the custom word list in flash cards........................................................... 136 4.5.9 Using the custom word list in Spelling Test........................................................137 4.6 Organizing a spelling bee event.....................................................................................138 4.6.1 Fixing a date........................................................................................................ 139 4.6.2 Choosing a venue................................................................................................140 4.6.3 Forming a dedicated team to organize a spelling bee........................................141 4.6.4 Letting people know........................................................................................... 142 4.6.5 Knowing the participants....................................................................................143 4.6.6 Selecting a panel and announcer........................................................................144 4.6.7 Deciding on the competition rounds..................................................................145 4.6.8 Announcing a prize pool..................................................................................... 146 4.6.9 Choosing the words............................................................................................ 147 4.6.10 Print large flashcards........................................................................................ 148 4.6.11 How the competition proceeds........................................................................ 149 4.6.12 How the answers are to be provided............................................................... 149 4.6.13 How the winner is to be declared.....................................................................149 Section 5: Spelling Bee Resources............................................................................................... 150 5.1 Spelling Words Lists....................................................................................................... 151 5.1.1 1st grade Spelling Words.................................................................................... 152 5.1.2 2nd grade Spelling Words...................................................................................153 5.1.3 3rd grade Spelling Words....................................................................................154 5.1.4 4th grade Spelling Words....................................................................................155 5.1.5 5th grade Spelling Words....................................................................................156 5.1.6 6th grade Spelling Words....................................................................................157 5.1.7 7th grade Spelling Words....................................................................................158 5.1.8 8th grade Spelling Words....................................................................................159 Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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5.1.9 High School grade Spelling Words...................................................................... 160 5.1.10 Very Difficult Spelling Words............................................................................ 161 5.1.11 Frequently Misspelled Words...........................................................................162 5.1.12 Latin Words.......................................................................................................163 5.1.13 Japanese Words................................................................................................164 5.1.14 More Asian Words............................................................................................ 165 5.1.15 Arabic Words.................................................................................................... 166 5.1.16 Spanish Words.................................................................................................. 167 5.1.17 Silent Words......................................................................................................168 5.1.18 Dolch Words Grade 1........................................................................................169 5.1.19 Dolch Words Grade 2........................................................................................170 5.1.20 Dolch Words Grade 3........................................................................................171 5.2 Spelling Bee Sheet..........................................................................................................172 4.3 Spelling Bee Words Sheet.............................................................................................. 173 5.4 Spelling Bee Links...........................................................................................................174
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Section 0: Introduction
0 SECTION 0
Introduction
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0.0 Copyright Notice Mastering Spelling Bee. Copyright © 2019 SpellingBee.ninja and the SpecialOne Studio. All rights reserved. This book is the property of Spelling Bee Ninja and the SpecialOne Studio. The contents of this book are protected by the United States and International Copyright laws, and cannot be published, modified, rearranged or used in any form written and/or electronic. This book cannot be sold and no money can be charged for the distributing it unless prior and explicit authorization is provided by the publisher. This book can be linked from third party websites using the official distribution page of this book, that is: https://www.spellingbee.ninja/spelling-manual The contents of this book are protected by United States and International Copyright. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—unless prior and explicit authorization from the publisher. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below. https://www.spellingbee.ninja/contact-us Visit our website at: https://www.spellingbee.ninja
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0.1 Purpose and recipients of this manual Welcome to Mastering spelling bee. This book is dedicated to all the students willing to prepare for the spelling bee in a serious way. This book also contains all the things you need to know about our spelling bee Training web app, Spelling Bee Ninja, and how to use it. This book can be a very useful resource for those students willing to compete and win a spelling bee Competition like the Scripps spelling bee or any other spelling competition. The methods and tools described in this manual will also be useful to those studying the English language, allowing them to increase spelling capabilities and broaden their vocabulary very quickly.
0.2 What will you learn from this manual After reading this book you will know a lot of things about spelling bees in general. You will be aware of the most effective preparation methods and you will get to know a lot about our training system and how to utilize it in the best way possible for your preparation. You will learn the mechanics behind the most famous spelling bees around the world and the related rules. You will learn many training techniques and tips that will allow you to become a top speller very quickly. You will also know where to find and how to use software systems used by top spellers for training and preparation purposes using modern days techniques.
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0.3 Where to find the latest edition manual This manual is officially distributed through our website www.spellingbee.ninja. However, it is very likely that it will spread throughout the internet and be distributed by many alternative channels, such as distribution partners, web services and websites. This manual is to be constantly updated, in particular, the section dedicated to our software system, will be revised and updated very often, as we continue to integrate more features into the system. Therefore, it is very important to check the edition number on the cover page, to be sure that you have the latest version. To know the latest version number, please check the official page on our website at https://www.spellingbee.ninja/spelling-manual
Be sure to update your copy if you don’t own the latest version.
0.5 Sections overview This manual is divided in 6 sections: i.
Section 0: A brief introduction and general information about the book
ii.
Section 1: An overview of spelling bee competitions, rules and history, list and descriptions of the most famous spelling bee competitions worldwide
iii. Section 2: How to prepare for a spelling bee, tips tricks, study methods and techniques, preparation strategies. iv. Section 3: Training for the spelling bee using the Spelling Bee Ninja training system. v.
Section 4: Practical guides and how to, using Spelling Bee Ninja .
vi. Section 5: Spelling bee lists divided by grade, Spelling Bee sheets and a list of online resources for your study.
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0.4 How to read this manual If you are new to spelling bees and want to get the most out of this book, we strongly suggest you to read it from the beginning to the end. If you are already aware of spelling bee training methods and are looking for instructions on how to use our spelling bee Training system, you can jump directly to Section 3: Training with Spelling Bee Ninja. If you are not interested in training at all and just want to get general information about spelling bees, start from Section 1: spelling bee Basics. If you are looking for tips, techniques and methods to improve your spelling, without using any computer aid, please refer to Section 2: Preparing for spelling bee. Section 4 presents a collection of quick, step by step practical guides and tools to train for spelling bee, mostly using our spelling bee app, you jump to this section with no prerequisites, only, refer to section 3 for detailed instruction on how to use the SBN tools and app.
0.5 We need your help and feedback Our intent is to make this the best Spelling Bee Manual ever. To achieve this goal we need your help. So please don’t hesitate please get in touch with us for: a. Suggestions b. Paragraph and arguments you’d like to see included c. Errors, typos d. Your opinion e. Anything else
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Please send us your feedback at: https://www.spellingbee.ninja/contact-us/
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Section 1: Spelling Bee Basics
1 SECTION 1
Spelling Bee Basics
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1.1 Introduction to the Spelling Bee Spelling bee competitions have always garnered the interest of a large part of the population in the United States of America. From aspiring students to their enthusiastic parents, spelling bee has evolved from just a contest to a popular culture that affects every school, neighborhood and child in the country. The lure of deep media coverage along with a hefty cash prize is known to intensify the spelling bee spirit with children spending hours in preparation, every week before the contest. spelling bee, which is now a popular feature during the academic years of every child, throughout the country, has been part of the American folk tradition for more than a few hundred years. The earliest evidence of spelling bees can be traced back to the 1700s as a part of Colonial Education by the Puritans. Throughout the mid-18th century, spelling contests which were often called as spelling matches were quite common in schools. Even Benjamin Franklin recommended the use of such contests in a school proposal published in 1750. The National Spelling Bee or more commonly known as Scripps National Spelling Bee has been regularly held since 1925. Since its inception, spelling bees have amassed a massive following and is seen as a platform to fulfill academic aspirations. The main reason for popularity - parents want to see their children succeed and want the world to acknowledge their brilliance and might. Every year, more than 11 million kids fight their way to the top, dodging spelling challenges at school, city and regional level spelling bees to become one of the few hundred finalists for the national finals. The spelling bee contest is not just an event, it is the story of our culture, language and hard work of millions of kids who experience the first taste of persistence, commitment, resourcefulness, discipline and even failure, to evolve in life. spelling bee is the story of modern English language which has been an instrumental part of the American lifestyle for years. The aspiring students are not just competitors, they turn into passionate etymologists who learn to dig deeper into lingual patterns, scrounge the history of words, master the mysteries of the language and find their way to lingual supremacy. In a way, spelling bees are not just about spellings of some random words- it’s about how our language was built, developing vocabulary, grammar, leading and comprehension skills and evolving oneself as an individual who is highly analytical and pragmatic. Moreover, it’s not just about how the language evolved over the years, it’s about how the national challenge evolve a child’s skills and how he deals with the challenges beyond. It wouldn’t be wrong to say participating in a spelling bee is like an adventurous saga that Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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requires a child to invest countless hours into research, mastering his fears of spontaneous recitation and tackling the unforeseeable challenge.
In the end, all of this hard work and dedication colludes into an annual gala where hundreds of promising young minds gather to find out who has been the most committed to achieve something great in life. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that spelling bee gives a child a glimpse into realism and the American lifestyle. It defines who we are, what it means to nurture an American dream and how to make the best out of available resources. This folk tradition which started centuries back has taught many generations the value of never giving up on dreams and be the best version of themselves. This book is a tribute to the spelling bee culture, hundreds of winners and millions of children who have nurtured spelling bee into a global phenomenon, today. In this book, we will take you through the history of spelling bee contests and how to prepare effectively for winning at these contests.
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1.2 History of Spelling Bee in the USA Spelling bees have been on the American academic landscape for more than two hundred years. According to several sources, the first usage of a similar word like ‘spelling bee’ dates back to the year 1769 when it might have been called the ‘spinning bee’1 Spelling bee competitions were a common feature of the American landscape by the middle of the eighteenth century. Benjamin Franklin, one of our founding fathers even suggested spelling bee contests to be a regular part of schooling curriculum in one of his proposal in the year 1750. By the nineteenth century, Spelling challenges had been a popular aspect of American life, both for children and the adults. It was part of the pop culture and even found mentions in novels like The Hoosier Schoolmaster- a bestseller published in 1871 in which the hero falls in love with a woman competitor in a spelling match. Spelling fights were even mentioned in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Spelling bees were commonly known as ‘spelling matches’ at that time. The phrase got the modern uplift in the mid 1870s where first time the match was called as a spelling bee. The earliest known documented evidence of the phrase “spelling bee” dates back to 1850 and appeared in print in 1875. The term ‘bee’ referred to a social gathering or event with a common goal, back then, which in this case was to compete on knowledge of spellings. A key motivation for the competition was The Noah Webster’s spelling books which were first published in 1786 and known informally as ‘The Blue-backed Speller’. The Webster’s spelling book was a prerequisite part of the syllabus of all elementary school Kid in the United States for five (5) generations. As of now, the main-key reference for the competition is Webster’s Third New International Dictionary which contains approximately 473,000 words presently, which students should have the capability to spell. The National Spelling Bee, the way we see it today, is a national event held in Washington D.C. every year, where winners of local and regional bee contests congregate to compete in the national level competition. Managed and run by E.W. Scripps Company, The National Spelling Bee contest has an interesting history attached to it. The first known instance of a nationwide spelling competition is known to date back to the year 1908 which was organized by the National Education Association.2 But the initiative failed to gather much attention at that time. Later, during the year 1925, The Courier-Journal, Louisville, a famous newspaper house and organizer of state-level spelling bee contest in Kentucky for grade school children, asked other
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American newspapers to collaborate and sponsor children for participating in a national level contest. By the end of June 1925, more than 2 million children participated in local level competitions out of which 9 were shortlisted- representing one of the nine participating newspapers in the national initiative. These nine contestants competed at a national-level contest in Washington. Frank Neuhauser, an 11-year-old kid from Louisville won the inaugural contest by spelling the word ‘Gladiolus’. He won a cash prize of $500, back then. The event proved extremely popular and soon other newspapers joined forces to conduct national-level competition every year. In the year 1941, Scripps Newspaper group, won the sponsorship for National Spelling Bee contest, while local newspapers continued representing students at the regional level. In 1958, National Spelling Bee contest became more structured when Merriam Webster affiliated with the National Spelling Bee to launch Webster’s Third Unabridged dictionary as the official arbiter of any word’s spelling. Along with that, the company also began publishing a spelling bee study guide for contestants. Over the years, Scripps National Spelling Bee has turned into a national phenomenon. In its 92nd edition held in 2019, more than 565 contestants from all over the country participated against each other for the winning price. The prizes have also been raised from nominal $500 in its first edition to $50.000 in its latest edition. Naturally, the popularity and media attention it receives has grown over the years too. Today, National Spelling Bee is a major television event with ESPN broadcasting the event annually since 1994. The journey of spelling bee contests from a regional competition to a national (and even international) phenomenon has been exciting and phenomenally grand. People are fascinated by the spelling bee contests. The event has been broadcasted to millions of viewers around the globe. Several documentaries and features have been made on the concept. Still, the passion and interest of the people hasn’t faded over all these years, even in the age of auto fills and spell checks. Maybe, the dream of doing something big in life is what drives all these passionate children. Who knows what we have in the future. With increased interest from the students as well as the parents, the bar gets raised every year. Incidentally, now contestants do not only need to have deep orthographic knowledge, but also a knack for spelling and great concentration levels along with the capability to deal with the pressure.
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1.3 Brief Historical Timeline of Spelling Bee
1750 - Formal suggestion by Benjamin Franklin to include spelling bee Contests in schools
1769 - Earliest mention of contests similar to spelling bee
1786 - Publication of the first Noah Webster Spelling Books
Mid 19th Century - Spelling bee contests became more popular and found mentions in novels, journals and newspapers. Coining of the term spelling bee.
1908 - First national spelling competition held by National Education Association
1925 - The Courier Journal collaborated with other newspapers to begin a national level contest.
June 1925- First collaborative national level spelling bee contest won by Frank Neuhauser.
1941 - Scripps Newspaper Group won sponsorship rights for National Spelling Bee Contest
1946 - Spelling bee first broadcasted on NBC
1958 - Affiliation of National Spelling Bee with Merriam Webster to launch Webster Third Unabridged dictionary as official arbiter for spellings.
1994 - Spelling bee first broadcasted live on ESPN
2005 – First National Spelling Bee held in USA with international participation from Bahamas, Jamaica, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Canada, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Germany, Canada & New Zealand2
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1.4 The Scripps Spelling Bee Winning the National Spelling Bee is the dream of many children. No matter where one lives, the prospect of being the next spelling bee sensation is extremely lucrative. Though everyone wants to win spelling bee, each year only a few manage to secure their position in the top charts and ultimately lift the engraved spelling bee trophy and the cash prizes associated with the championship. The Scripps National Spelling Bee or simply National Spelling Bee is the most popular and widely acclaimed spelling bee competition in the United States of America. Started in 1925, the spelling bee has been held every year since then (except from 1943 to 1945 due to World WarII). The E.W. Scripps Company holds the right to hold and promote National Spelling Bee contest since 1941 and takes care of all the affairs on a not-for-profit basis. National Spelling Bee is held in the week following Memorial Day Weekend in Washington D.C.
1.4.1 Scripps National Spelling Bee Competition Format Scripps National Spelling Bee is one of the longest-running educational contests in the United States of America. The National Spelling Bee Competition is known to operate on a unique model where 291 of its sponsors organize spelling bee competitions within local communities. Sponsors of National Spelling Bee generally are daily and weekly English-language newspapers from around the world. With the help and support of local schools – private or public, these sponsors organize spelling bee contests to come up with a champion. All the champions compete annually in Washington D.C. at the annual competition.
1.4.2 Qualifying Regional Competitions Entry to the National Spelling Bee competition depends on a speller’s performance in the regional competition. A regional contest may or may not correspond to the national competition and covers multiple counties, states, territories or even foreign countries.
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Regional competitions, commonly known as local spelling bees, ask spellers to use official study booklet known as Spell It! Spellers are required to use the official study booklet and prepare for competition at the regional level. Though, ‘Spell It!’ is the official study booklet, students have often been seen using School Pronouncer’s Guide, which is a shorter version of Scripps’ official dictionary with several surprise words.
1.4.3 National Competition Format All the successful spellers who’ve won the regional bees compete in the national event as per a specific format. The National Competition consists of multiple rounds starting divided between preliminaries and finals. The finalists compete in prime-time spelling bee finale. Preliminaries The prelims consist of a multiple-choice test followed by a single round of oral spelling onstage. The multiple-choice test has 26 questions divided into four different sections. The round one spelling section allows spellers to score one point for each of the 12 correct answers. In the second round, one scores one point for each of the 12 correct answers in the Vocabulary sections. By the third round, each speller gets three-point for each current answer in the Vocabulary section. If a speller makes a mistake during round two or three, he/she is immediately eliminated from the competition. After round three, the scores of all remaining spellers is gauged on a ‘Maximum of 50’ standard chart. 50 spellers are shortlisted based on scoring levels and rest spellers are eliminated who are tied with subsequent eliminated ones before the finals. Finals The final round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee kicks off right after the preliminaries with round four and continues to proceed with short breaks as per the necessity. This will go on till the authorities declare a champion or co-champions. The remaining spellers of the competition are asked to spell out one word in each round. Spelling a word incorrectly during an oral round will result in the direct elimination of the speller (exception: End-of-Bee Procedure, which is discussed below). Spellers who get eliminated in the same round are tied for the same place. The End-of-Bee Procedure: Under the circumstances where all the participants in an oral spelling round misspell the respective word, they shall all remain in the competition and a new round will begin with the spellers spelling in their original order. If only one participant spells Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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correctly in a round, a new one-word round will be started and the speller is given the opportunity to spell the next word from the list (anticipated winning word). If the speller correctly spells the anticipated winning word in this one-word round, he or she is declared as the champion. If the speller misspells the provided word, a new round will begin with all the spellers who spelled correctly and incorrectly in the previous round, and they will all be spelling in their original order. Round Limit and Provision for Declaration of Co-Champions: The maximum limit of oral spelling rounds involving three or fewer participants is 25. If such a situation arises where it becomes mathematically impossible for the authority to declare a single champion from these 25 participants, they will all be declared as the co-champions.
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1.5 Popular spelling bees around the world Although the Scripps is the most famous Spelling Bee competition in the world, there are several other important Spelling Bees being organized around the world every year. These contests range from regional levels, all the way up to the national levels and then to the global level. The global spelling bee circuit has come quite far and has seen a lot of development over the past two decades. As young students and learners are becoming more and more interested to take part in such spelling activities, the organizers and spelling bee enthusiasts are doing everything in their power to ensure that these young souls are provided with the proper platform and guide to pursue their goals. With these thoughts in mind, spelling bees have been established around the world.
1.5.1 Scripps National Spelling Bee www.spellingbee.com Again and briefly, the Scripps National Spelling bee is the most popular spelling bee event in the whole world. Inaugurated back in 1925, this US based spelling bee hosts participants from all over the world, with majority of these participants being from the United States. The competition is held annually during the month of May. Participants must not be older than 14 years and they must not have passed the 8th grade. This spelling bee is probably the most competitive one out there. This is probably one of the reasons why 92nd Scripps National Spelling Bee ended up having 8 WINNERS, INSTEAD OF 1 (because they ran out of words)! The Scripps National Spelling bee also endorses a few other spelling bees around the world. It also accepts participants from other regional spelling bee competitions held in the United States.
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1.5.2 South Asian Spelling Bee https://southasianspellingbee.com/ The South Asian Spelling Bee is an annual competition held in the United States for children of South Asian descent. This spelling bee tours the country mid-year in search for the top two spellers from 5 cities nationwide. The finalists will then battle it out in the national rounds for the spelling bee crown. It also has a program similar to the Scripps National Spelling Bee's RSVBee, called the SAS-BEE where wild-card spellers can apply to compete at the nationals. The spelling bee is open to any student below the age of 15, and having at least one parent or grandparent from a South Asian descent. Origin countries include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The event is accepting up to a hundred applications on a first come first serve basis. 20 students will be shortlisted from the original 100 applicants based on certain criteria. Finally, 12 students will be allowed to take part in the finals.
1.5.2.1 Global broadcast The South Asian Spelling Bee is aired on Sony Entertainment Television (SET) Asia as a multipart series. The competition has been on since 2008 and broadcasted to over 120 countries.
1.5.2.2 Registration A parent or legal guardian of the speller must register online via credit card. On-site registrations are not available. Registration of the participants must be done within the deadline as further extensions of the deadline are not possible.
1.5.2.3 Road to the South Asian Spelling Bee finals This spelling bee is divided into three distinct stages. The primaries, regional oral rounds, and the national finals. Primaries: This is a written test. Spellers are to write down 25 words with a time limit of 60 seconds for each word. A host will read out a word along with its definition. To qualify for the next round, the spelling bee contestants must spell a minimum of 15 words correctly. Regional oral rounds: These rounds are conducted on a miss and out basis, until only one speller remains. This remaining spelling bee participant is given a championship word, which if spelled correctly, will make the speller the regional champion. The regional winner and first Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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runner-up from each center will go on to spell at the final round. Finals: The top 2 spellers from each regional contest advance to the finals. The final rounds are conducted completely in an oral format as described above. There will be a two minute time limit for each speller. The last remaining speller of the finals will be declared as the National Champion.
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1.5.3 Indian Spelling Bee https://www.indiaspellingbee.com The Indian Spelling Bee is one of the most popular spelling bees in the Sub-continent and the biggest spelling bee event in India. The competition is open for school kids (Grade 1 to 9). The national level spelling bee is held during the month of August. The India Spelling Bee was designed by acquiring certain inputs gained from the past spelling bee experiences in India. Organizers of this bee consulted with both students and academicians, to make sure they were going in the right way. Students from anywhere in India can participate in this competition irrespective of their location, board, medium of education, race or gender. India is a diverse country, and keeping this thought in mind, the competition promotes this diversity. It is held in both urban as well as rural schools and institutions.
1.5.3.1 Who can participate? The India Spelling Bee is open to all Indian students from grade 1 to 9. All participants are awarded participation certificates. The students will participate in 5 categories or grades. These are as follows: Grade 1: Students from Class 1 Grade 2: Students from Class 2-3 Grade 3: Students from Class 4-5 Grade 4: Students from Class 6-7 Grade 5: Students from Class 8-9
1.5.3.2 Spelling bee rounds Since India is such a vast country, the spelling bee takes place in more stages. I n the first stage, the competition is held regionally as each school is put under one of four regions (north, south, east, and west). Placeholders from these regional rounds then battle it out in the national round held in Kolkata, India.
1.5.3.3 Registration for India Spelling Bee Participants can register for the India Spelling Bee through their respective schools only. Individual registration is currently unavailable. The registration is free of charge, however, students do have to pay a one-time fee of 125 rupees ($1.5) for a spelling bee guide book.
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1.5.3.4 How the Indian Spelling Bee works Once you register through your school, your very first round will be an on-campus round. Winners from the on-campus rounds will move on to the regional rounds. Schools are divided into four regions – north, south, east, and west. There will be winners from each zone who will then go on to the national finals. The final rounds are always intense. The last remaining spellers will be declared as the winners. Note that each grade will have a champion, a first runner-up, and a second runner-up.
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1.5.4 Spelling Bee of Canada www.spellingbeeofcanada.ca The Spelling Bee of Canada (SBOC) is an educational organization. It promotes educational development among the youth, parents, teachers and the community at large. The organization celebrates these developments through the achievements of their stakeholders in various local and international educational events. Spelling Bee of Canada is a registered charity. Established back in the year 1987, the Spelling Bee of Canada (SBOC) has been involved in the promotion of children and youth literacy aiming to enhance the learning experience of these youngsters. The Spelling Bee of Canada organizes annual spelling bees for kids between the ages of 6 and 14. Registered participants are then placed into one of three categories: Primary (6 to 8 years), Junior (9 to 11 years) or, Intermediate (12 to 14 years). Students over the ages of 14 go on to become mentors to the participants of their respective regions. They are dependent on local businesses, organizations and individuals to contribute time, materials, services and/or funds. Their overall aim is to achieve the overall educational as well as academic growth of the youth and community. SOBC plans on establishing a national spelling bee that can have over a million participants. They plan on doing this by regional outreach. The successful regional champions will go on to the provincial championships, and then the national finals.
1.5.4.1 SBOC categories SBOC organizes annual spelling bees for children between the ages of 6 to 14. Participants are placed into one of the three available categories. Primary category is for ages 6 to 8. Junior category is for ages 9 to 11. The intermediate age is 12 to 14. Besides, students above the age of 15 go on to become mentors to participants in their respective regions.
1.5.4.2 SBOC Prizes Spelling Bee of Canada awards three position holders from each category. The winner, along with the 2nd and 3rd position holders, are given cash prizes, trophies, certificates, and other gifts.
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1.5.4.3 The different stages of the Spelling bee of Canada All registered participants are provided with a study booklet with the official spelling bee words and spelling bee word lists. They are also given lessons via coaching sessions. At the start, they enter their regional competition as participant. Contestants are grouped based on the three categories mentioned above. Regional competitions are held in association with the Community Spelling Bee (includes those children – public and/or private - whose schools are not a part of the Family of Schools at that point in time) or the School’s Spelling Bee (Family of Schools). Winners from the regionals move on to the next rounds. Each region is known as a SOBC Chapter. There are more than 30 such regions operating at the moment under the Spelling Bee of Canada.
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1.5.5 European PTA https://europeanpta.weebly.com/spellingbee.html The European Parent Teacher Association organizes this spelling bee for all DoDEA schools in Europe. This spelling bee is also held in association with the Scripps National Spelling Bee, United States. Students take part in this spelling bee and position holders go on to participate in the European rounds, and then winners from there go straight to Washington to join the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
1.5.6 UNC Adult Spelling Bee https://humanities.unc.edu/programs/nightlabs/adult-spelling-bee The University of North Carolina undertook the program for organizing spelling bees for adults. That is how the UNC Adult Spelling Bee came to be! The door to this spelling bee is open for all adults for a ticket price of just $6. Although the spelling bee is for adults, the participants are eased into the competition just like in normal spelling bees. They start out with easy words and gradually progress to harder ones. UNC Adult Spelling Bee allows both single participation as well as participation in teams.
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1.5.7 The Japan Spelling Bee https://bee.japantimes.co.jp/ Established back in the year 2010, Japan Times Bee (now called ‘Japan Spelling Bee’) is the only spelling bee competition organized in Japan. It is officially licensed by The Scripps National Spelling Bee in the United States. The Japan Spelling Bee is Japan’s national level spelling bee competition. This spelling bee is one of the most popular spelling bees around the world.
1.5.7.1 Purpose of the Japan Times Bee The spelling bee has a long and overwhelming history. Ever since its inception about a century ago in the United States, this spelling event has spread all across the globe, bringing young minds together under a single roof as they test their spelling skills to the limit. The spelling bee is one of the most competitive events organized for school children. The event not only promotes this healthy competition among the participants, but it also helps develop their spelling and vocabulary skills. Apart from that, the spelling bee can also help them understand etymology, how root words work, pronunciation, and so on. Japan is one of the most developed and academically advanced countries in the world. To ensure further development of the youth, they adopted the spelling bee. Collaborating with the Scripps Spelling Bee, the Japan Times Bee has gone on to become quite popular.
1.5.7.2 Registration and enrollment Firstly, schools willing to participate at the Japan Spelling Bee are to register at the Scripps Spelling Bee website as well as at the Japan Spelling Bee website. Not being able to follow this procedure will result in the failure of the spelling bee registration. Then, the registered schools are to organize a spelling bee among their respective students. The winner from each of the participating school is then sent to the Japan Spelling Bee held in March. Finally, the champion is sent to the US to take part at the Scripps National Spelling Bee finals held in the same year. Note: Home schooled kids can participate in the Japan Spelling Bee too. In that case, they will have to register with their affiliated school or institution, and that school or institution has to be registered for the Japan Times Bee as well as for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, just like the other schools. Home schooled kids will have to participate in the school bee of their affiliated institutions.
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1.5.7.3 Competition rules Each speller has to spell their word out loud on stage. They are allowed to make request for the definition of the word. The language of origin, and the use of the word in a sentence can also be requested. Spellers, however, are not allowed to go back and change the order of their spelling once they have misspelled a word or delivered a letter out loud which they then realize is wrong.
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1.5.8 African Spelling Bee http://africanspellingbee.com/ The African Spelling Bee was established in 2016 by separate spelling bee organizations from all over the African continent. The first ever African Spelling Bee was held in the same year in Johannesburg, South Africa. A total of 27 champions from the 10 or so participating African countries came together at this event. This initiative was undertaken to help African school children learn better. The ultimate goal of this was to achieve the overall development of their youth and shape them as citizens who can pass on certain values to the society. According to the authorities, this spelling bee program has gone on to impact over 10 million learners across Africa.
1.5.8.1 Participating countries At present, there are 18 countries involved with the African Spelling Bee. These spelling bees and their respective countries are listed below: 1. Benin: BENIN BEE 2. Botswana: SPELLING BEE BOTSWANA 3. Ethiopia: ETHIOPIAN SPELLING BEE 4. Ghana: NATIONAL HARD SPELL AND QUIZ CONTEST 5. Kenya: KENYA NATIONAL SPELLING BEE 6. Lesotho: THE ROYAL SPELLING BEE 7. Liberia: YOCEL 8. Malawi: NATIONAL SPELL MASTER SPELLING BEE 9. Nigeria: NIGERIA SPELLING BEE 10. Rwanda: BRAIN TEASERS RWANDA 11. South Africa: MZANSI SPELLING BEE and SPELL IT SOUTH AFRICA 12. Tanzania: TANZANIAN SPELLING BEE 13. Uganda: UGANDA SPELLING BEE 14. Zimbabwe: ZIMBABWE SPELLING BEE Besides the ones in the list, Zambia, Tunisia, Gambia, and Sierra Leon also organize spelling bee contests in association with the African Bee.
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1.5.9 Mexican MEXTESOL Spelling Bee https://mextesol.org.mx/national-spelling-bee/ Mexican MEXTESOL Spelling Bee is organized by MEXTESOL, which stands for the Mexican Association of Teachers of English, A. C. It is an academic organization aiming to develop the English language (both in terms of speaking and writing) among its members as well as nonmembers. MEXTESOL is also involved with the development of teachers and research methods that involves English linguistics. In order to expand their vision, MEXTESOL organizes the MEXTESOL National Bee for students of both primary (fifth and sixth grade) as well as for secondary school students. A total of 50 students are allowed to participate in each spelling bee contest. These spelling bee contests are limited to schools where English is not that often used as a language or in academic classes. This is done to focus efforts into the development of those school children who are deprived of proper inclusion of the English language in their academic curriculum.
1.5.9.1 Registration for Mexican MEXTESOL Spelling Bee Registration is to be completed through one’s school. The applications are heavily scrutinized as the seats for the spelling bee is very limited.
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Section 2: Preparing for Spelling Bee
2 SECTION 2
Preparing for Spelling Bee
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2.2.1 Spelling Bee preparation We all know that spelling bee is a prestigious competition where a lot of is at stake. So, to make your child ready for the national championship, you need to focus diligently on his preparation. According to several past spelling bee winners, it takes years to prepare well for a spelling bee contest. While many people think of the spelling bee as a dull and simple memory competition, this is not entirely true. To prepare well for the spelling bee, one has to stay disciplined, work hard and practice often. At the same time, a speller has to understand the roots, patterns and origins of various words. When a speller learns the language patterns, there is very less need of memorizing words and spelling bee contests become interesting. spelling bee is more of a contest of one’s hard work than memory power. In the subsequent sections, we will cover how you can prepare efficiently for spelling bee contest and improve your odds of winning the National Spelling Bee Contest.
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2.2.7 Building a Winning Strategy Winning at a spelling bee requires more than just memorizing. Over the years, spelling bee champions and position holders have gone on to talk about their winning strategies. In this section, we will be taking a look at some of those strategies which you should follow if you want to ace the upcoming spelling bee.
Write it down on your hand: When we tell you to write the words down on your hand, we are not asking you to copy entire word lists on your hands and then get on stage at the spelling bee; that is just wrong and you will be disqualified. So no, we are not asking you to do that! But here is what you can and should do. Whenever you are asked to spell out a word, pretend to write that word down on your hand. It is much easier to recall the spelling of the respective word if you are writing it down. Now, you will not be provided with pen or paper at the spelling bee stage. Hence, you have to make use of your hands and try to retain the spelling using this technique.
Listen to the pronunciations: Read out the words aloud and let them sink inside your mind. If possible, use online spelling bee platforms (check out Spelling Bee Ninja) to help you get the accurate pronunciation of the words. Avoid using text to speech applications as these apps often fail to give you the proper pronunciation.
Difficult words on sticky notes: Whenever you come face to face with a difficult word, write it down on a sticky note using a large font and then stick it on your desk or any place else where you have a clear view of the word. This will help you imprint the words in your mind and you can visualize the spelling when you need to.
Hope you like a large crowd: How good are you at speaking in front of a large audience? If your answer is ‘not so good’, you need to try and do something about it. As you take the stage at the spelling bee competition, you will have to speak in front of a crowd of thousands. In addition to that, there will be hundreds of thousands of people watching from home on their televisions. Having to spell in front of such a large audience is a daunting task. In order to come out of this high pressure situation, you first need to have the confidence to get up there on that stage. Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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Build up your confidence by regularly organizing mock spelling bee sessions at home in front of your family. As a parent or guardian, you too should motivate your children by sparing a bit of your family time to help them work on their spelling skills as well as build confidence. Teachers should also take the initiative of holding practice spelling sessions at school. You need to take part in these sessions willingly, otherwise, stage fright just might get the better of you at the competition, no matter how well prepared you are with your word lists.
Time is valuable vocabulary: If you are aiming for the top of the pedestal, you must value the time you have left before the competition. Spelling bee position holders do not waste their time. You need to do the same and get your priorities straight. Plan out your day to day activities for the month before the spelling bee kicks off. Keep track of your progress and plan accordingly for the next day or week. You are allowed to take breaks of course, but do not let these breaks get the better of you.
Behind every successful speller, there is a dictionary: When asked to share their secrets for a successful spelling bee campaign, the spelling champions of the last few years recommended participants to grow a habit of reading the dictionary. This might sound hard and redundant at first, but when you think deeply about it, it will surely start making sense. Dictionaries contain in-depth analysis of all the words that fit in the English language including their meanings, diacritics, root words, pronunciations, and so on. Most of the words included in the dictionary are already known to you. You just need to find out the ones which seem hard. Both Merriam Webster as well as the Oxford dictionary will serve your purpose. The spelling bee champs, however, prefer the Merriam Webster dictionary over the Oxford one.
Head over to the Spelling Bee Ninja website: When it comes to EdTech spelling bee platforms, Spelling Bee Ninja (SBN) is one of the best ones out there. We provide you nothing but the best in terms resources, platform, and information regarding anything and everything related to spelling bees. Our platform contains spelling word lists from grade 1 all the way to high school, along with additional word lists of a higher difficulty level. You can also import custom word lists into the platform for your use.
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Unlike other spelling bee platforms, SBN does not provide the facilities of games or puzzles. This platform takes a professional approach for teaching its users, and manages to make it interesting all the while. Check out the following section to know more about Spelling Bee Ninja, and what we have to offer, if you are using Spelling Bee Ninja for your preparation, please follow the technique at paragraph: “Training strategy using the Smart Trainer” in the next section.
If you are Using Spelling Bee Ninja, please consider the training method explained in the paragraph: “Training strategy using the Smart Trainer” In section 3 of this manual.
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2.2.2 How to spell in English Language? Spelling Bee is a competition where you have to master the skill of learning to spell. While it may seem like a daunting task at first (Merriam Webster dictionary has 470,000 words in total), it becomes manageable when you learn how to spell in the English language. English is a complex language- it has derived words and patterns from different languages like Greek, French, German, Latin, etc. making it really difficult to master. There is no specific pattern for spellings, which can make children fearful about learning to spell in the English language. But like every structured subject, English language can also be mastered when you go deeper into the study of how words originated and how to manage a complex spelling on your own. In the modern times, there are several tools to help you spell – spell checks, word lists and automated tools to improve your spelling skills. But you need to master your personal spelling skills before using any tool. To succeed in spelling a complex word, you should know about the word first. Being informed or clueless is the difference between a winner and someone who is just doing it for fun. Naturally, this means you need to research, focus and often practice with words you know and the ones you haven’t even heard of.
2.2.3 Useful Technique to Help You Spell a Difficult Word Here follows the first simple basic rules to follow when spelling a word, please write this down and memorize because they are as simple as they are important. Step 1: Break Down the Word Before you attempt to spell the word, you should separate the complete word into distinct parts. This makes a spelling more manageable when it comes to spelling. You should try pronouncing each part individually- focusing on one syllable at a time. When you break down a word, your brain suddenly starts comprehending the individual syllables automatically. Take the example of the word ‘opportunistic’. This would break down to ‘op-por-tu-nis-tic’. That’s how you can train your brain to understand better and spell out correctly. Step 2: Simplify the Word There are several words in the English language that can be broken down into a simpler form – its root form. You should try to identify the root of each word you come across. Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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The easiest way to find out to root of any word is to remove any suffix and prefix. What is a Suffix? A suffix is a letter or a group of letters added to the end of a word to alter its meaning or to ensure it fits grammatically into a sentence. What is a Prefix? A prefix is a letter or a group of letters which is placed before the root of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word.
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Suffix
-acy
ante-
-al
anti-
-ance, -ence
circum-
-dom
co-
-er, -or
de-
-ism
dis-
-ist
em-, en-
-ity, -ty
epi-
-ment
ex-
-ness
extra-
-ship
fore-
-sion, -tion
homo-
-ate
hyper-
-en
il-, im-, in-, ir-
-ify, -fy
im-, in-
-ise, -ize
infra-
-able, -ible
inter-, intra-
-al
macro-
-esque
micro-
-ful
mid-
-ic, -ical
mis-
-ious, -ous
mono-
-ish
non-
-ive
omni-
-less
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Prefix
-y
post-
-ly
pre-
-ward, -wards
re-
-wise
semisubsuperthermtranstriununiJoint Suffixes & Prefixes in English Language
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2.2.4 Common Spelling Rules
A common rule like this (‘I’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’) can help in figuring out that words with an ‘ee’ vowel sound will be spelled as “shield” (‘I’ before ‘e’) and ‘receive’ (except after ‘c’).
When adding a suffix to an English word ending with an ‘e,’ you generally drop the ‘e’ that starts with a vowel (like ‘-ing’ or ‘-able’) and keep it when adding a suffix starting with a consonant (like ‘-ment’ or ‘-ly’). Using this rule, you can figure-out that ‘homeless’ and ‘homely’ will both keep the ‘e’ at the end of ‘home’ while ‘moving’ and ‘unmovable’ will both drop the ‘e’ from ‘move.’
When adding a suffix beginning with a vowel (-ing, -y, or –ed) in a one syllable word with one short vowel and ending in one consonant, double the final consonant. drip: dripping, dripped, drippy wet: wetter, wettest win: winner, winning
When adding a suffix beginning with a vowel (-ing, -y, or –ed) to the final syllable in two or three-syllable words with one short vowel, if the final syllable is accented, and ending in one consonant, double the final consonant. infer: inferring omit: omitted begin: beginning happen: happening
Before adding a suffix beginning with a vowel, drop the final e. dine: diner late: later fame: famous invite: inviting
Before adding a suffix beginning with a consonant, keep the final e.
I before E except after C unless it sounds like A
English words do not end in V or J
Q always needs U
Y changes to I when added suffix starts with E
Al- is a prefix written with one L when preceding another syllable
-Ful is a suffix written with one L when added to another syllable
"S" Never Follows "X"
"C" Makes Two Sounds
Short Vowels Sound Only Need One Vowel
Double the "F," "L," and "S" in One Syllable Words
Drop the Final "E" After a Suffix
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Suffixes Don't Have to Change the Spelling
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2.2.5 How to prepare for Spelling Bee? By now, you might have realized that you will need a proper learning and preparation strategy if you are serious about winning the spelling bee. The first and most important rule of preparation is to practice. The more you practice, the better you will become. So, discipline, punctuality, and commitment towards a routine are critical if you want to prepare for spelling bee. The more people you will talk to, the more you will get confused about how to prepare efficiently. So, it’s better to stick to the basics and create your personal preparation strategy. Here are some critical steps that will help you get started with spelling bee preparation. 1. Solidify your Spelling Basics Before you get serious about anything else, you will need to build a firm grip over the basics of spelling. Though the English language has a lot of exceptions, some basic spelling rules would apply in most of the cases. It is advisable to get hold of a few standard rules, the ones listed in the previous paragraph, improve your personal spelling skills.
to
A great way to grasp spelling rules faster is to use examples to illustrate the rule’s applicability. 2. Pay Heed to Etymology Etymology is the study of the origin of words. To master at a spelling bee contest, you need to have a solid knowledge of where a word was originated. The English language is heavily influenced by several foreign languages like Latin, French, Greek, Italian, etc. When you learn the art of getting to the origins, you will learn to deal with exceptions. Generally, the words derived from other languages don’t comply with the rules of English grammar and pronunciation. If you start paying heed to the origins, you will learn how to identify patterns in words that come from same foreign language. Etymology will help you spell words that you are clueless about. If you can identify the root of a word by discovering its origins, you will be able to spell it right. A great way to prepare is to discover and learn words based on language grouping techniquegroup words coming from the same language in a single group.
3. Be Attentive Always
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Great spellers are always attentive. They observe and evaluate every word they come across, no matter where they are. So, if you want to improve your spelling skills, make sure to imbibe the practice. No matter what you are reading – a comic, novel, or your science textbook, when you come across a new word, learn more about it. Check where the word comes from, how to use the same and other information you can find. This will broaden your perspective, even when you are not glued to browsing the dictionary or preparing meticulously. 4. Make ‘Dictionary’ your Best Friend Scripps National Spelling Bee uses ‘Merriam Webster Unabridged Dictionary’ as their official dictionary. So, you will also have to refer to the same for the correct spelling. When you have a comprehensive resource by your side, you should make it your reference material. While other techniques like using study guides and lists help, you should not reduce the importance of going through the dictionary over and over again. This will ensure that you are never ever surprised by a new word. If you manage to go through and learn the words in the dictionary, you will be in a better position to rock in Local, Regional and National Spelling Bee Competitions. 5. Create Your spelling bee Word Lists Once you learn to make dictionary a part of your life, you can smarten your efforts by creating your own personalized lists. While there is a lot of material available online and schools also provide customized word lists, it is better to create your own word list. Word list, as the name suggests, is a long list of words that you should know. It can serve as a great reference point for quick revision and can also help in garnering interest towards longer word lists. 6. Learn How to Deal with Silent Letters Silent letters can be a disappointment for many spellers. There are many spelling examples where a letter is not pronounced but is in the spelling. Many spellers have failed to include the same in spellings. To tame the silent letters, you should practice with such words more often. Many words with foreign origin like ‘psychology’ can be confusing. (just an example, though). The best way to deal with them is to go through such words again and again. If you are a teacher or parent, give the child enough examples so he/she can understand how to manage words with silent letters. 7. Follow proven concepts and strategies
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There are many strategies spellers use to remember the words they practice and learn. These strategies can help you improve your spelling skills. One common strategy is to create a ‘Trace, Copy & Remember’ Guide for yourself. To get started with this method, you need to create three columns on a piece of paper. Write all the words you need to learn in the ‘Trace’ column. In the ‘Copy’ column, write down the word again and again. Then cover both the columns and try writing the word in ‘Remember’ column. Try again and again and you will learn the spelling this way. All the words you successfully write in the ‘Remember’ column are the words you have mastered. This is a great technique if you are working on your own and need a lot of practice.
These tips will help you get started with spelling bee preparation. But if you are more serious about preparation, get hold of some useful tips in the following section of the book.
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2.2.6 Useful Preparation Tips Everyone wants to become a spelling bee champion, but if you want to succeed, you need to study deeply and get a grip over words and spellings. In this section, we will outline some useful tips that will help you become a spelling bee champion. A clever speller does not just prepare diligently but smartly to make sure they make the most out of the opportunity to win. The tips, tricks and techniques mentioned below will help you hone your skills as a speller. Tip 1: Sharpen Your Observation Skills If you are preparing for a spelling bee, you should not just focus on the dictionary. Instead, you should start observing things around yourself. If your child is planning to participate in spelling bee, take him/her to local spelling bee. Ask him to see how other contestants approach a word. spelling bee is not just about spellings but building a calm demeanor to avoid silly mistakes and deal with on-stage pressure. When a child observes all this, he/she will be able to improve the skills. Also, observation is also suggested in everyday life. Ask your child to observe new words, new phrases, new spellings, everywhere. When you are at the mall and see a foreign word or brand, ask your child to research about it. Tip 2: Prepare Orally While it is good to prepare on paper, spelling bee competition is about oratory and oral spelling skills. Most children are introverts and are shy to speak on stage. So, you need to start encouraging them to speak more often. Sit with your child and take his/her oral spelling tests. Prepare a dummy stage at your home and imitate the environment of spelling bee competition. Just preparing on paper would not help your child much as it will not build his/her confidence. As you know, the final rounds are oral, you will need to prepare your child for the oral test, too. Also, motivate your child to speak in front of the audience as spelling bee rounds will have real audience. Many contestants fail to face the audience and lose. Make sure you pay attention to this aspect through motivation, encouragement and building opportunities to speak for your child. Tip 3: Build Focus by Studying Alone Ask your child to study alone. This will help in building concentration levels and promote discipline. While group studies are fun, it often leads to confusion and wastage of time. To prepare for a competition like spelling bee, one needs to focus more than anything else.
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Also, if you are thinking of hiring an instructor or supervisor, you should consider it again. A child must be able to handle problems and prepare a preparation schedule on his/her own. The more effort one makes on his/her own; more are the chances of success. It is better to guide your child once in a while, but his preparation journey should be inclined towards solitary study. This will also protect him/her against distractions and taking collective wins as personal wins. As spelling bee is an individual contest, one should learn to deal with problems and find solutions individually, too. Tip 4: Discover Shortcomings & Limitations by Taking Tests Studying is just half of the battle. The other half – evaluation is more important. Taking regular tests helps understand one’s limitations and problems. If you are preparing your child, you should have a mechanism to enable him to take spelling tests. When a child takes tests, he understands where he/she lacks in preparation. Also, this helps to find similarities between different words. Routinely evaluating performance leads to improvement. As it is said, no plan can be successful without a system to measuring the outcome. Similarly, your plan to make your child win cannot be successful if you don’t have a yardstick for measuring his/her improvement. You don’t want your child to face competition on the spelling bee day itself. So, it’s better to give him regular tests to explore problems and taking corrective measures to improve his/her skills. Tip 5: Leverage Online Tools & Resources In the digital world, there are innumerably resources available online to practice and prepare for spelling bee. So, a speller should not limit the preparation to just dictionary and selfprepared spelling lists. There are many study guides, encyclopedias and readily available spelling lists that one can use to improve his/her skills. Also, in the modern age, software and apps make our everyday life easier. Similarly, there are dedicated software for spelling bee preparation like Spelling Bee Ninja. These software and online tools are a complete package consisting of popular spelling lists, test emulators, global ranking charts and a lot many dedicated features that can help in holistic preparation. So, one should always keep his perspective broad and focus on tools and resources that can help the resources. These tips would help your child or student in preparing effectively for the spelling bee competition. While this is a great way to level up your preparing efforts, you still need a winning strategy if you want to make a mark. In the following sections, you will learn how to create a personal winning strategy that would help you win at Local, Regional and National Spelling Bee. Every
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champion has a strategy. It’s time you build and refine your own too if you are really serious about winning spelling bee.
2.2.8 Practicing for Spelling Bee Over the decades, spelling bees have been known to foster healthy competition and breed academic excellence amongst its participants. As time went by, these competitions saw an influx of young minds who were participating in these contests to not only win it, but to also nurture their own minds. With the global expansion of spelling bees, both on a national level as well as on a regional level, the competition has only gone on to become tougher. If you want to become a spelling bee champion, you need to think and practice like one too. Here, in this section, we will show you how you should train yourself or your children for the upcoming spelling bee, and what you need to do to ensure maximum success. Gather up your word lists: The very first thing you need to as part of your preparations for the spelling bee is gather up word lists. Word lists are the most integral part of any spelling bee preparation. These lists are composed to help participants understand the level of the competition and to familiarize them with the words that are often asked to be spelled out at the competitions. You can gather these word lists in a number of ways. The best places to look for these lists are the competition websites. Competitions such as the Scripps National Spelling Bee, publish these lists on their websites and update them when necessary. Apart from this, you can also try out the spelling bee word lists offered by different EdTech or online spelling bee platforms like Spelling Bee Ninja. You will see that these platforms have a specific word list for every grade. This makes it easier for participants to know what they are up against and the level they need to reach if they want to make it far in the world of spelling bees. Separating the unknown from the known: As you go through the word lists, you will encounter words which are either unknown to you or are difficult for you to memorize. In such cases, you must isolate these words into a separate list and give them extra importance as they are seemingly more difficult compared to the rest. Visualizing the spelling: You must remember that human memory is more adept at capturing visual details than everything else. You will stand a better chance at memorizing a word if you can imagine the spelling of that word visually. For instance, let us assume that you are trying to memorize the word ‘exaggerate’. What you can do is write down this word with a large font on a piece of paper or on your desktop, and Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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then stare at it for a good 30 seconds or so as you keep spelling it out. This technique will help imprint the word in your mind in a visual manner which will surely pop up in your head every time you hear the word or try to spell it out. Learning the root words: Whenever you come across a complex word which looks difficult to spell, try breaking it down to its root words or its source words. For example, hydrophilic which comes from the words hydro (meaning water) and -phil (meaning love or affinity). Hydrophilic refers to something that can dissolve in water or something that has an attraction towards water. Almost all complex words like the one in the example or a bit more difficult, can be broken down into smaller parts, each with its own meaning. If you find difficulty in memorizing the whole word in one go, you ought to try and memorize its root words or the simple words that join together to form the complex one. Scheduling practice sessions: If practice can make a man perfect, it can very well make your child a topnotch speller. The key is to have regular practice sessions conducted over a certain period before the spelling bee hits off. There is no particular standard that has to be followed for having practice sessions. Different people have different retention capabilities. For some, it takes longer to learn a new word compared to others, and that is absolutely fine. Work out your own retention capabilities by experimenting with words, time to memorize each spelling, and how long it takes for you to be able to retain those words on a short notice (for instance, you just randomly want to spell out that particular word). Based on this information, you can design your own schedule. Learning diacritics to get familiar with the pronunciations: Diacritics refer to the special symbols or marks which are added to letters to indicate a special or changed pronunciation of the letters. These marks are very important for spelling bee competitions as pronunciation of the words are heavily dependent on them. During the spelling bee, you will have to spell out the word by paying close attention to the word’s pronunciation. A good practice is to learn the diacritics of various pronunciations from the word lists and to practice them on a daily basis. Train your ear and your mind to identify the spelling of a word through the way it is pronounced. Playing spelling games: Learning the spelling of a new word or trying to inherit new vocabulary can be a monotonous task. However, thanks to modern EdTech platforms, you do not have to worry about your children being bored to death while they prepare themselves for the upcoming spelling bee. The online interactive learning platforms developed by these EdTech companies are indeed an amazing and fun way of learning spellings. These platforms contain different types of games and puzzles which can import your desired word list (or you can choose one from their own system) and set up the games accordingly. Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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If you want your kids or students to prepare for spelling bee competitions, but cannot get them to pay attention to their 'plain word sheets', you should definitely switch to this intriguing new way of learning spellings. Most of these platforms come with their own mobile applications, usually for both Android and iOS, which you can download for your mobile or tablet. Kids love spending time on smart gadgets these days, so why not get them into learning something new while they enjoy themselves? Practicing with your friends: Gather up all your spelling bee friends and have some fun among yourselves! Organize a mini spelling bee in your own backyard or your school. This sort of inhouse or in-class spelling bee sessions should be highly encouraged among parents and teachers. This will help students practice for the main event and at the same time, will assist them in overcoming their stage fright (if they have it). Read, write, and repeat: Apart from the materials provided by the spelling bee websites and other online spelling bee platforms, you should build up a habit of reading anything you can find. Books, newspapers, and blogs are good resource materials for learning new vocabulary. But reading through the lines will not be of any use if you cannot manage to retain the words you have just learned. It is always a good practice to keep a small notepad around you at all times so that you can practice by writing the word down. Write down every new or difficult word you come across and practice it at least 15-20 times. Throughout the day, you are likely to come across 3-5 new words by going through these random reading materials. Remember, practicing will only bear you fruit when you do it repeatedly. So do not just stop after a week or so. Keep it at and you are sure to ace that spelling bee.
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2.2.9 How to face a Spelling Bee No matter how well your preparation is or how well you performed in your school’s mock spelling bees, if you fail to deliver at the main competition, all of the hard work you put in will end in vain. Preparation is key, but taking your preparation and being able to deliver it is something participants often fail to achieve. Most of the attendees at the spelling bee fail to live up to their expectations, not because of their poor preparation, but because of their inability to make it count at the actual event. There are a lot of spelling bee participants who, despite of their poor preparation, end up going quite far in the competition. All this is possible because of the skill or ability they have when it comes to facing the spelling bee. In this paragraph, we will explore the steps that will enable you and all other participants to take on the spelling bee in the right way, and to face the competition head on. Rule 1: Knowing the rules and structure of the competition Before you even get up on the stage, it is crucial that you know about the competition’s rules, regulations, and all other related guidelines. Remember, each competition is entitled to their own set of rules and regulations. Hence, it is important that you are fully aware of these rules and regulations. If you are not familiar with these instructions before the day of the competition, do not worry. The host or panel at the spelling bee will surely announce the instructions at the start of the competition. Make sure you are paying attention to the competition announcements. Rule 2: Listen to the word carefully As the host or announcer of the event dictates the word for you to spell out, make sure your full concentration is on him or her and the word being dictated. You will then be requested to spell out the word letter by letter. Rule 3: Clear out your confusions It is natural that participants might fail to grasp the word at the very first attempt. In this case, feel free to ask the host to repeat the word. If the arena is too noisy for you to listen to the dictation properly, you can let the host or panel know, and they will in turn, ask the audience to maintain silence. If you face problems with the host’s pronunciation, you can tell them about it as well. Rule 4: Ask them the meaning and/or root words
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There are a lot of words that have the same pronunciation but their meanings are completely different from one another. These words are indeed very confusing to the participants who are likely to mistake one word for another. In order to avoid such mistakes or confusions, ask the host to tell you the meaning of the provided word. If necessary, you can ask them to identify the root words for you as well. Do not hesitate to ask such questions as you have the full authority to do so. The panel at the spelling bee will in no way be annoyed at you or any other participants for asking such relevant questions. Rule 5: Tell them to use it in a sentence Despite knowing the meaning of the word and its origin or root words, there is a chance that you will still not be able to understand it. It is also natural that you might want to know a bit more about the word before you proceed to spell it out. Under such circumstances, request the host to use the word in a sentence. Participants familiarize themselves with the spelling bee words in a lot of ways. One such way is through the use of sentences. Thus, asking the panel or the host to use the provided word in a sentence can help you understand the word better which might just assist you in retaining its spelling. Rule 6: Avoid responding quickly, even if you are sure Hurrying can lead to unforeseen problems. No matter how good you are at something, if you tend to do it quickly or in a hasty manner, chances are high that you are going to ruin it. You will not be penalized for taking your time while spelling out the given word. Hence, you do not need to respond quickly, even if you are fully confident of the spelling. When you try to spell quickly, there lies the possibility that you will forget to say a letter or two, or you could misspell the word unknowingly. For instance, you may know the spelling of the word ‘e-x-a-g-ge-r-a-t-e’. But, if you go on to spell it quickly, you might forget about the second ‘g’ in the spelling, or might spell it as ‘e-x-eg-g-e-r-a-t-e’. So you see, hurrying will not get you anywhere at the spelling bee. Rule 7: Write the word on your palm with your finger Imagine that your finger is a pen or a pencil, and your other hand is a small piece of paper. When you are given the word by your host at the spelling bee, start writing it out one letter at a time in your palm with your other finger. This helps you to visualize the word better and recognize any mistakes before you spell it out on stage. Also, try writing the words on your palm with your finger while you're practicing for the spelling bee as this will help you to visualize the word better and get acquainted with the motions.
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Rule 8: Deliver the spelling confidently This has more to do with your personal appeal than the actual spelling itself. However, delivering the spelling in a confident manner shows your boldness. It makes you stand out from the participants who are rather nervous. You might even end up having a fan club of your own! Note: It is important for you to know the difference between confidence and arrogance. Rule 9: Stay mentally prepared for harder words As you make progress at the spelling bee, it is natural that the words you will be facing will only get harder. From one syllable to di-syllables, to words that have a lot of silent letters, your spelling bee will keep on getting harder and harder. It is thus important for you to be on your toes. To be prepared for anything they throw at you. Remember, you have trained for this. You know that it is going to come for you. You just have to be mentally prepared to take it head on. As you can tell, facing a spelling bee is not that easy. However, if you follow these steps, you will surely do a lot better in facing the challenges. So go out there and have a go at the spelling bee head on, with full confidence!
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2.2.10 Preparing for spelling bee when it’s late The biggest spelling bee of the season is right around the corner. All your friends are hard at work. They are determined to leave no stone unturned in order to achieve glory at this year’s spelling bee. From word lists to practice sheets, your peers have completed them all. From words that are easy to spell, to the ones that can twist your tongue, they have mastered them all. In short, they are fully prepared to take on the challenges that are about to be thrown into their way at the spelling bee. And then, there is you. You took procrastination to a whole new level as you went on delaying your preparations for the spelling bee, and now it's too late. What do you do now? Is this season's spelling bee over for you before it even started? Believe it or not, there is still some hope for you. Although you have wasted a lot of time, you can still make up for it. Preparing for the spelling bee when it's already too late is a daunting task, but it is anything but impossible. Let’s explore the steps you need to follow to prepare for the upcoming spelling bee no matter how late you’re. Note: Under general circumstances, if you have around 30 days before the spelling bee kicks off, you are pretty much in the clear and you will not need to rush your preparations. In this paragraph we will focus on the preparation steps you will have to take when you have less than 15 days to prepare. Step 1: Calculate how much time you have in your hand Assuming that you have less than 15 days at hand, your first and foremost task is to take a good look at the calendar and find out how many days you have remaining. Once you have calculated the time you have at hand, you will be able to understand how much cramming you have to do. This step will serve two different but very important purposes. Firstly, you will be aware of how late you are and how much time you have to fit in all the work. Secondly, as your preparation deadline is right there knocking on your front door, you are likely to be hit by a sense of slight fear which can further help your fuel your cramming sessions.
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Remember, there are people out there who manage to cover large volumes of their exam syllabus the night before their exam. So if they can do it, you should be able to as well. Step 2: Look at the volume of content you are yet to cover Your next task is to go through the syllabus and the word lists to see how much you know and how much you don’t. In this step, you should also take the time to go through all the rules and regulations of the spelling bee you’re about to participate in. Don’t be scared if the content to be covered is a lot more than what you initially expected. This happens to everyone who waits till the very last minute to start preparations. Step 3: Isolate all unknown or difficult words from the word lists This is where the main preparation starts. You need to pick out words from the word lists which seem unknown or difficult to you. These words can be the ones which are difficult in general, or are completely new to you. Choose this set of words carefully as they will next be composed as a separate new word list for your last minute preparations. Use Spelling Bee Ninja to create and study Spelling Words. Step 4: Prepare a separate word list with the isolated words Once you've isolated all the unknown and difficult words from the word lists, you need to put them all together in a new list. This new list is your best friend for the next few days up until the competition ends. Take one whole day for step 1 and 2, and another day for step 3 and 4. This will leave you with at least 12-13 days for the main preparation. Import your custom word lists into the Spelling Bee Ninja training platform and practice them here. Step 5: Note down certain attributes of the words from your newly prepared list Word attributes include things like the root words and pronunciations of the words from your word list. You should also write down at least two sentences using each word. This step should be completed in a day or two. These attributes are vital to your spelling bee success. Root words help you to breakdown complex or long words into smaller words and help you understand their origin. The pronunciations are to be written right next to the word. You’ll be able to see the difference between the spelling of the word and the way it’s pronounced. Sentences are to be written down so that you can know where and how these words are used.
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Step 6: Establish daily objectives Since you are short on time, you need to set daily objectives which can help you ensure the completion of the syllabus. You have a lot of content to cover, and now that all the note-taking and resource preparation is done, you can understand how much time you have to allocate each day to be done with your work. Remember, you have a life outside the spelling bee as well. This includes your studies, extra curricular activities, and so on. Make sure that you don’t overlap one thing with another. Stick to your daily schedule and objectives list to get better results. Step 7: Be sure to take a break every once in a while You might be cramming, but that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t take breaks every now and then. It is important to know your own limits. Be sure to give yourself a break in between study sessions. Entertain yourself a little. Keeping your mind fresh will help you to concentrate better. Step 8: Read, write, and repeat Your practice sessions should include two things - reading the spelling out loud, and writing the words down every time you spell them. This combination of reading and writing enhances your spelling retention capabilities. Repeat these actions during your practice, and you will be able to prepare yourself in the best way possible for the spelling bee that’s knocking on the door. Take your preparation to the next level with Spelling Bee Ninja. Click Here. Remember, you can’t fit an entire dictionary inside your head in less than 15 days. When you’re behind schedule on your studies, you don’t necessarily have to swallow all the content. To be honest, you won’t even have the time to do so. Hence, you need to prepare smartly, and not fully.
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2.2.11 Organize a mock spelling bee at your school Whether you are participating at the Scripps National Spelling Bee or any other regional or private spelling bee competition, it is always a good idea to get a taste of how the actual competition will be like, especially if it is your first time participating in such an event. Such mock spelling bee sessions will only complement the hours of practice before the competition. Besides this, the mock session will also help boost your self-confidence and allow you, as well as your mentor, to identify your lacking. Organizing a mock spelling bee session, however, is easier said than done as it requires time to prepare for and a materials to conduct. But if you know the right way, and follow certain steps and guidelines, you will be able to organize these mock spelling bee sessions at your school or class with zero to little difficulty.
For your mock Spelling Bee at school, use the Spelling Bee Sheets in Appendix 1. Write down player’s names in the first column. At each turn write down the word given and the answer. Set the Passed checkbox to Yes or No accordingly with the given answer.
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Please print the following 7 SUGGESTION FOR YOUR TEACHER OR TUTOR, so that your institution can successfully organize a mock spelling bee session in the shortest time possible, and with maximum efficiency. 1. Proper scheduling: Timing is key when it comes to competitions like this. Depending on when you start with your preparations, you will either have enough time to prepare, or you will have no time at all. This is why you need to consider a few things before you schedule the mock session. The ideal time for conducting such mock sessions is 20-30 days prior to the main event. Even if the mock sessions last for a week, your pupils will have a minimum of two additional weeks to work on their lacking. 2. Using word lists: Each grade should be tested on specific word lists set for them. But do not just stop there. If you see your students are acing their respective word lists, you should test them on a harder list from a higher grade. Spelling Bee Ninja has spelling word lists available from grade 1 to high school. You can also compose custom word lists by looking at the words used in the past competitions. 3. Do it in front of an audience: The purpose of the mock spelling bee sessions is to help your students familiarize themselves with the environment of an actual spelling bee competition. Keeping that thought in mind, it is highly recommended that you conduct these mock sessions in front of a live audience. This will help your students to see how it feels when you are competing in front of a live audience. Spelling bee contests attract a huge audience who come down to the events to cheer their loved ones or their favorite participants. In a few cases, these events are also broadcasted on live television. All this exposure to the public might make your students quite nervous. So it is in their best interests that you allow them to carry out the mock sessions in front of a live crowd and let them work on their fear of performing in front of a crowd (if they have any). Anyone can be a part of the crowd, for instance parents, teachers or students from another section or grade. 4. Everyone should participate: Every student should be encouraged to take part in the mock spelling bee, even if they are not willing to participate in the main event. Not asking you to force them, but since they have nothing to lose here, you should go ahead and try to convince them into joining the rest of the participants. You never know what might motivate these young minds. Perhaps the excitement a spelling bee has to offer or their own success in the mock ups might encourage these students to try their luck in the main event.
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5. Rewards: One of the things that motivates students to participate in spelling bees is the amazing prize pool the competition offers. From prize money to various gift options, spelling bee competitions offer their winners and position holders a plethora of amazing prizes. Rewards or prizes can be good motivators. Studies show that such reward based systems help people (and even other animals) to put in more effort towards something in hopes of getting a reward if that something is accomplished successfully. Realistically speaking, your mock spelling bee cannot afford to have consisting of large monetary sums or expensive gift options. Schools budget for such a lavish prize pool. Instead, what you could give the bonus marks in spelling or even extra credits. You could also opt for comic books, or anything else which will not cost a lot of money.
such a large prize pool will not easily pass the winners is maybe some gifts like chocolates, or
6. Use an EdTech platform: We live in an era where technology has made access to education much more convenient through educational technology (EdTech) platforms. It is thus, only reasonable that we make the best use of these platforms to save us both time and cost. When it comes to spelling bee, no platform comes close to Spelling Bee Ninja (SBN). The platform has everything a spelling bee enthusiast could ask for. From interactive spelling lessons, to customizable word lists, you can do anything and everything here. One of the things that sets SBN apart from the other spelling EdTech platforms on the market is that it does not offer games or puzzles as part of the learning system. Spelling Bee Ninja takes things to a professional level and avoids the use of gameplay as a method of teaching. Although games and puzzles are good ways to learn, they can also be distracting. Thus, choosing SBN will help you avoid that and will help your students concentrate more on the actual lessons. Spelling Bee Ninja offers its users a plethora top notch resources for you to choose from. 7. Be sure to have fun: Despite being vital to the pre-spelling bee practice, these mock spelling bee sessions need to be fun. The more the students enjoy themselves, the more enthusiastic they will be to participate in these sessions. Make sure that your students are enjoying the mock sessions and are interacting with among themselves. Encouraging such experiential learning techniques can really help establish a sense of enthusiasm and motivation among pupils. Thus, we should allow our students and children to indulge themselves in the spelling bee activities, and should motivate them to do their best. These suggestions are for mock sessions. If you decide to organize a real Spelling Bee Event you could find useful the dedicated guide contained in section 4 of this manual “Organize a Spelling Bee Event”.
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Use Spelling Bee Ninja to create and print spelling lists To use in your mock Spelling bee. Many ready list are freely available at the address: https://mai.spellingbee.ninja/featuredlists
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Section 3: Training with Spelling Bee Ninja
3 SECTION 3
Training with Spelling Bee Ninja
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3.1 Introduction to SBN 3.1.1 Spelling Bee Ninja Spelling Bee Ninja (SBN for short) is a system designed to help students from all over the world in preparing for spelling bee competitions. It is the first attempt to create a professional system for spelling bee training. Spelling Bee Ninja is a powerful system that offers some unique features specifically designed for effective boosting of one’s spelling skills very quickly. Spelling Bee Ninja is a software deployed to public as a web application, which you can use for free via desktop or hand-held devices at the following web address: https://www.spellingbee.ninja/app
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The aim of SBN is to help students training for the spelling bee to maximize their result while minimizing the time dedicated to study, in order to get super prepared in the fastest possible way. Spelling Bee Ninja is a web based system and it is constantly improved and updated. Some of the information or images on this manual might seem slightly different or enriched on the website. However, the core of the system and the training process is well defined and you won’t find any difficulty to eventually adapt the information in these chapters to the online system. Also online documentation and tutorials are provided on the web site. SBN has been built because despite the increase in spelling bee activities, every year, there lacked an automated system that could address the problem of spelling bee preparation in a professional way. That is why SBN is one of its kind and it is a really useful system for all the students willing to win at spelling bee competitions.
Reach out Spelling Bee Ninja app at: https://www.spellingbee.ninja/app And open a free account to start.
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3.1.2 How SBN works This paragraph presents a brief overview of the principles behind the SBN system to give you an idea on how SBN works. Spelling Bee Ninja relies on a server-side database containing all the English words. An initial difficulty level is associated to each word so the system can provide spelling tests using words list compatible with the student grade/level. When a student finishes a spelling test, the system gets the related data, learning something new about the student, among the other: the words spelled correctly, the misspelled ones, how long did it take to give answers and so on; the data is also related with other variables, such as student’s nationality, the type of school attended and other parameters.
Moreover, SBN remembers the misspelled words and the correctly spelled ones for the specific student, so it will be able to provide proper word sets for future spelling tests (Smart training feature). In this way, SBN collects spelling bee related data for every single English word, becoming more and more precise and aware as more students use its features. The data is then used to bring powerful features to SBN users, such as Smart Training and the spelling bee search engine.
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3.2 Using Spelling Bee Ninja 3.2.1 Starting with SBN To start working with Spelling Bee Ninja you need a computer (either laptop or notebook) or a tablet connected to the internet, let’s start by creating an account.
3.2.2 Creating an account To create an account, point your browser to https://www.spellingbee.ninja/app and choose Register, fill in the form providing the requested info. If you want to team up or compete with your schoolmates don’t forget to set your school, check the related documentation for further information. If you are registering as invited student, using an invitation code from your teacher, click the “I have an invitation code” link and enter your code. Confirm your data by clicking the “Sign Up” button.
You will be redirected to the application dashboard.
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3.2.3 Managing your account Once you are logged in, a menu the right.
labeled with your username will show in the top menu, on
You can access and manage your account by choosing “My Account” from that menu.
From the account page, press the “Edit” button to change your account settings. You can set your account as name, email, country, school, and whether you like to receive news from Spelling Bee Ninja or not.
Setup your school
If you are a student or a teacher from a school, it’s a good idea to set your school in your Spelling Bee account. Setting your school will give you access to a special top spellers’ chart completely dedicated to your school. The school ranking chart will contain official spelling test results only by student from your school, allowing you to compete against your classmates and follow class and school spelling bee tournaments.
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To enable this feature, you have to setup your school in your account, from your account page click the “Set school” link, the following dialog will pop up:
Spelling Bee Ninja contains a database of thousands of schools around the world, mainly international schools. To check if your school is already in the SBN database, select the “Search your School” text field, start typing the name of your school and see if it appears in the list. In case your school is already in SBN database, just select it and press “Ok”. If your school does not appear, it has to be added to the schools database, please tell us about your school filling the the fields in the bottom part of the dialog, specifying your school name, country and city. The data will be received by the SBN staff that will add the school to the database as soon as possible after a short quick verification of the data. Resetting your password Just in case you forget your password or your username, use the link “Request password reset” from the login page. You will be requested to enter either your email address (the one you used to create the account) or your username, click the confirmation button and an email will be sent to you containing a special link that will allow you to enter a new password for your account.
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The password reset can also be requested from your account page when logged in for cases you need to change your password.
3.2.4 Free and paid features Spelling Bee Ninja offers many free features and many advanced features that comes at a tiny fee, for instance if you are a teacher you could be interested in the classroom account that will allow you to handle a class of up to 30 students. Once you created your profile you can eventually upgrade your account to a more powerful one, check the https://www.spellingbee.ninja/plans page to see which features are offered by the different plans and prices. If you choose to buy a plan, after payment you will receive a redeem code. To activate your plan please refer to the next paragraph.
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3.2.4 Redeem your code In case you bought an upgrade to unlock advanced features, you have to activate it from within your account, using the redeem code you received via email. To activate your plan, please choose "Redeem Code” from “My Account” page, enter the code you received via email and click the “Activate” button, your account will be upgraded. You will receive a confirmation email containing the details of the operation.
3.2.3 Creating a student First things first, right after the account creation, it is necessary is to specify at least one student. A Spelling Bee Ninja account is able to handle one or multiple students, depending on the plan. At least one student must be created to use Spelling Training features. To create a student, click on your profile menu (the one labeled with your nickname), choose “My Students”, and then click the “Add Student” button. Fill in the fields in the form: Name, Family Name, Country, Grade, and Student type. SBN has two type of students: Local Students and Invited Students, please check the following paragraph for more information. Once one or more students are created you can focus on the training activity. In the following paragraphs you will learn how to take spelling tests, manage words lists, use the spelling bee search engine and monitor your progress.
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3.2.3.1 Local Students Local Students will use the system from the current account. The local student can be used from within the same account that has created.
3.2.3.2 Invited Students Invited Students will use the system from a different account. This type of student must be created by teachers to handle a classroom of students. This option is available only to Class account subscribers. Each Invited Student is created by the teacher, then an invitation code is sent via email to the student (or given by the teacher to the student). The student could then subscribe to SBN specifying the received code under “I have an invitation code” option. That the newly account will be coupled with the teacher’s one. This will allow multiple students to do their home works using their own accounts, being at the same time under control of the teacher.
Below the flow to create invited student
Teacher creates the student (from a Classroom account) specifying “Invited Student” under the “Student Type” field.
Right after the student creation, a dialog gives the opportunity to send an invitation email to the student. The teacher can enter a custom message to send to the student. In alternative teacher can communicate the code to the students orally (or in any other way).
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The student receives the invitation code and create his/her own account specifying “I have an invitation code” at sign up, entering the code received via email or given by the teacher.
The newly created account is automatically coupled with the teacher’s one so the teacher can control the student. The teacher is notified of the coupling and the student is labeled as “Claimed” in the students list.
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3.2.3.3 Student Profile
You can reach a student profile page anytime from your profile’s menu (the one labeled with your nickname), choosing “My Students”, then by selecting the student of your choice from the list. From the student page it is possible to edit edit the data related to the student and can access to the related features, in particular:
Edit Edit the data related to this student such as name, grade and country. Spelling Test Start a new Spelling Test for this student. Statistics Shows the statistics page for this student. Report cards Show the list of tests taken by the student, with links to the corresponding report cards. Error List Shows the content of the Error List for this student. In the following paragraphs all these features will be explained in details.
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3.2.4 Spelling Tests Spelling Bee Ninja features a text to speech enabled module that can provide students with spelling tests using natural English pronunciation. Spelling tests are the main resource used by SBN for spelling bee training. The application offers four types of spelling tests: Official Tests, Personal tests, Learning Smart tests and Review Smart Tests, read this and the following paragraph to understand the characteristics of each kind of test. To reach the spelling test app please choose “Spelling Test" from the top menu, or the Spelling test buttons you can find in spelling words list pages, in the Student page and in the Student statistics page. Once the app is loaded, the Spelling Test option dialog will appear:
3.2.4.1 Spelling test options Let’s see the options one by one: Student Select the student that is going to take the test. Some SBN accounts allows more than one student, in case you have a basic or student account, only one student will be present in the list. Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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Words per test Choose how many words you want for this spelling test, the app allows 10, 15 or 20 words per test. The suggested value to use when learning new words is 10, you can increase this value when taking review tests as review tests use words that you are supposed to know already. Words Source Choose the words source for this spelling list use for the test, the test will contain words from the source specified by this option. In the drop down menu you will find all the spelling list you created or imported into your account. The first three options, however, are handled by the system, in particular:
Official Spelling test: take an Official Spelling Test, refer to the related paragraph to learn more about Official tests.
Smart Training (Learn): take a spelling test provided by the Smart Training algorithm in learning mode. Using this option the test will contain words you misspelled in the past and new words suitable for your level. Use this options to learn new words and fix your errors (see smart training related paragraphs).
Smart Training (Review): take a spelling test provided by the Smart Training algorithm in review mode, in this case the test will contain words you are supposed to know already, because you spelled them correctly in previous tests. Use this option to verify the words you learned (see smart training related paragraphs).
Personal Tests: after the first three options handled by the system, you will find your own spelling lists sorted alphabetically, spelling tests taken using a custom spelling list are referred as Personal Spelling Tests.
Difficulty Choose standard if you want the test to use words suitable for your grade, hard if you want some words from higher grades and harder if you want even harder words (the harder the level the higher your potential score in Official Tests). Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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Repeat Policy Select here if you want this test to give you the opportunity to hear the words just once or multiple times. Possible values are from zero (no repetition allowed, the software will pronounce each word only one time) up to unlimited repetitions for each word. We suggest you to allow repetitions when learning new words and take tests with no repetition when reviewing. When taking Official Spelling tests, fewer repetitions allows you to reach higher scores.
Allow Word Definition Choose Yes if you want to allow the word definition feature during test. This feature allows the student to check the word definition before giving the answer. Allowing this feature is recommended when learning new words. Voice Select the voice of your preference for this test, the list contains all the English voices installed in your system. To hear a sample of the selected voice press the “Test Voice ” button at the bottom of the dialog window.
Once you set up all the options accordingly to your needs, press the “Start Test” button to begin your Spelling Test.
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The voice of the application will invite you to press the Next Word button (or enter key on your keyboard) to proceed with the next word.
On the left side you will find information related to the ongoing test, in particular: test type, words to go, repeat calls, last spelled word, difficulty level and elapsed time.
During the test use the following commands to proceed:
Answer field: a text field where you have to correctly type the current word pronounced by the app. Play button: on the left side of the answer field, also activated by the enter keyword, submits the content of the answer field as your answer. Next Word: also activated by the enter key, will spell the next word of the test. Repeat: if repeat is allowed for this test, it will repeat the current word and increase the repeat counter by one. Skip: use this button to skip the current word, in case you have no clues on how to spell it. Define: this button will pop up a dialog showing the current word’s definition, of course the word itself will be hidden in the definition window. Quit test: quit this test and do not collect the related statistics into your account. Go through all the words from the speaker,until the test is finished.
3.2.4.2 Report Cards Once a spelling test is finished, Spelling Bee Ninja will update the information associated to the student accordingly with test results, the errors list is updated and the system assumes the student has learned the words spelled correctly during test. A report card is generated and added to the other tests results by the same student, a dialog will appear giving the possibility to review your results immediately.
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Report cards for a given students are accessible from the student’s profile by clicking the “Report Cards” button. The report card contains your test results and score. On this page you will find, among the others you will find the following metrics: correct and misspelled words, skipped words, number of times the student asked the repetition of the words, total test time and total score. Also, a list of the words used in the test is reported and the corresponding answers given by the student; the misspelled words are reported in red using a strike font. The total score is calculated using the official scoring system check the paragraph How Spelling score is calculated for further information.
3.2.4.4 Error List The words misspelled by the student during the spelling tests are collected in a special words list called Error List. The Error List is accessible from the student’s profile page through the “Error List” button. Even though some editing operations are allowed (such as removing words), the Error list is automatically handled by the system. Misspelled words are automatically added here and will be automatically removed once spelled correctly in another spelling test. It is possible to use the whole error List for a spelling test by the “Spelling Test” button from the page; our suggestion however, is to take Smart Tests and let SBN decide which words are the best choice to fix your errors from time to time.
3.2.4.3 Student statistics card Each student has a statistics page containing statistics about spelling bee training activities. The statistics page can be reached from the student card, clicking the ”Statistics” button.
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This page displays: The number of tests taken by the student The number of correct and misspelled words The correctness percentage for each type of test (Personal, Official, Smart Learn and Smart Review). The average scores
Also, from the statistic page it is possible to reset the smart trainer data; which is the data acquired by the smart trainer by Spelling Bee Ninja for this student. The reset function is used when a student wants to restart a training cycle.
3.2.4.4 Smart Trainer As we said, Spelling Bee Ninja knows and constantly learns about the difficulty level of every English word. Moreover, it keeps track of the student progress, being aware of the misspelled words and the ones spelled correctly. Thus, SBN is able to provide personalized spelling tests to the student. Features related to Personalized training are generally categorized and referred as “Smart Training”. On the Spelling test side, SBN offers two kinds of Smart training features: Learning Spelling Tests and Review Spelling Tests.
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3.2.4.5 Learning Spelling Tests This type of spelling test will propose to the student a mix of words he/she misspelled in the past with new words the student is still not aware of. New words are chosen among the ones suitable for the student level. To take a Learn Spelling Test , choose the option “Smart training (Learn)” from the “Words Source” menu in the test option dialog,. Taking regularly spelling tests of this kind is a great strategy to get prepared for a spelling bee competition: the system will guide the student through the process of continuously learning new words, while at the same time fixing the ones that has been misspelled in the past (contained in the student’s error list).
3.2.4.6 Review Spelling Tests The purpose of this kind of spelling test is to review the words the student is supposed to know. When using this feature, in fact, the word set for the test is composed choosing among the words that have been correctly spelled in the past by the student. A student preparing for a Spelling Bee take this kind of test regularly, scoring a very high correctness ratio, from 80% to 100%. To start a Review spelling test, choose “Smart Training (Review)” option from the “Words Source” menu in the spelling test option dialog. Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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3.2.4.7 Reset the Smart Trainer The more tests are taken by a student, the more the Smart Trainer learns about the student. This way the system can provide the student with the proper words lists and follow him/her through the whole preparation period. There are some cases in which the Smart Trainer is required to forget what it learned about the student so the student can start from scratch. For instance, when a training cycle for a given grade is 100% completed, the student might want to start training for the next grade of difficulty. To reset what the smart trainer learned about you, reach out your student statistics page by clicking the “Statistics” button from the student profile page. In the statistics page, right below the smart training progress graph (see picture), you’ll find a “Reset Smart Training data" button, click it to reset the smart trainer, a confirmation dialog will appear asking you to confirm the operation. Please note that by confirming deletion SBN will forget all the data collected for this student, including the learned words and the error list content.
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3.2.4.8 Training strategy using the smart trainer Here follows our suggested preparation strategy using the smart training options. 1.
Set a proper starting difficulty grade in the Student Card .
2.
Take 3 to 5 LEARN spelling tests, setting the words per test to 10.
3.
Check the misspelled words in your Error list, write them down in a notebook. Check the words definition and listen to the correct pronunciation using the word cards feature in the eror list. Be sure use to learn the words, and DO NOT remove the words from the error list. Take more LEARN tests, these tests will contain the words in your error list, keep on taking tests until the words you wrote down at point 3 will disappear from the error list, ignore the words that eventually appear in the error list in this phase, just concentrate to the ones you wrote down .
4.
Take many REVIEW tests to verify that you are still able to spell the words you just learned (and the ones you learned in the past). If you feel confident about the words you learned, you can set the words per test to 15.
5.
Check the smart trainer completion progress in the student’s Statistics page: If lower than 100%: there are still words to learn for this grade, go to point 2. If equal to 100%: this grade is completed, you can now proceed to: a) Reset the smart trainer data. b) Increase the grade of the student. c) Start again from point 2 learning new, more difficult words.
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3.2.4.9 Official Spelling Tests An Official Spelling test is a spelling test taken using SBN Official Dictionary as words source. Words used for the Official Tests are taken from the official SBN words database containing thousands of words for each difficulty level. SBN is well aware of the difficulty level of the words used, so the spelling test is considered official. An accolade icon on the left of the page, right under the Test Type label, indicates that the ongoing Spelling Test has to be considered official. Official Tests will lead to official scores and will be included in the Spelling Bee Ninja world rankings. If a very high score is reached in an official test, SBN could release on official certificate of achievement.
3.2.4.10 Rankings and Certificates of Achievement Official scores are calculated using a dedicated scoring system named SNJFIX1, check in the related paragraph the details on how this scoring system works. The main variables considered in calculating an Official Spelling Test score are in general:
Correct answers / misspelled words ratio
The difficulty level set in the test options (standard/hard/harder)
The number of words
Repetitions count
Word definition count
As specified in the scoring system specification, the maximum score a student can achieve is 1100 irrespective of the grade of the student. The spelling test time, although registered by SBN and reported in the report cards, is not considered for final score calculation, this is because in Spelling Bee competitions, usually, students are not requested to give the answer in the shortest time. Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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Giving the answer quickly often leads to errors and taking the right time to think about the answer is way more important than speed to master spelling bee. Students achieving a score equal or higher than 800 are rewarded with an Official Spelling Bee Ninja Certificate, check the image below to have an idea of how it looks like:
Each certificate has its own unique serial number and unique internet address, delivered under the form of high-resolution graphic file, ready to be printed, saved on local drive or shared with friends. Only the owner of the account can access to the certificate file from the related report card page. Official scores are registered in the Spelling Bee Ninja world rankings. Ranking pages are public and accessible through the “Rankings” link in the top menu of the app. World rankings are grouped by difficulty level: one to eight corresponding to the respective school grade, then comes high school chart and a world top 100 regardless the grade. If a school is specified in the account, the school rankings will be also available at the bottom of each chart, so students from the same school can compete and have their own school rankings.
3.2.4.11 How Official Spelling Tests score is calculated Official scores can lead to publishing and awards. Let's analyze more in depth the scoring system actually in use on Spelling Bee Ninja. The code name of the scoring standard is "SNJFIX1" (Acronym for Spelling Bee Ninja Fixed Version 1). Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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It is a fixed scoring system. This means that, as for school grades, there is a maximum score that cannot be exceeded. The maximum score achievable with SNJFIX1 is 1100 (One thousand one hundred). The time taken to complete the test is not considered by the system: no matter if the spelling training session will take 10 minutes or one hour for the student to complete, this is because stress is not a good friend when learning. There is a penalty for misspelled words and skipped words. A skipped word is not considered as bad as a misspelled one but skipping words will limit bonus points (this to encourage the student to try hard to understand and also because a misspelled word is easier to remember than a skipped one). Out of a total of 1100 points achievable, 800 are determined by the percentage of correct words (or correctness factor), So this means that spelling correctly all the words proposed by the test will earn 800 points. The 300 remaining points are shared between Execution Factor (max 180 points) and Courage Factor (max 120 points). Execution Factor assigns more points when the spelling session has been completed in the cleanest possible way (i.e. using the least possible aids like definition, repeat etc.) Courage Factor gives more points when the spelling test options are set to higher difficulty (No definitions, no repeat, longer spelling words list, Harder difficulty). Both these factor offers a further bonus when the limit is reached (maximum execution factor reached and maximum courage factor reached). Please note that a higher courage factor increases the risks of committing errors during the test, losing points eventually brought by the correctness factor and the execution factor. Each misspelled word will cause a penalty of 33 points. Here follows the pseudo code algorithm used by SNJFIX1. note: in the following notation += means increment the variable by the value that follows example x+=3 means x = x+ 3.
correctnessFactor = corectPercentage * 8; //max800 executionFactor= 0; //Max 180 if(noWrongAnswers == 0 noSkippedWords == 0)executionFactor+= 40; if(neverAskedRepeat )executionFactor+= 40;
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if(neverAskedDefinition )executionFactor+= 40; if(executionFactor== 120)executionFactor+=60; courageFactor= 0; //Max 120 if difficultyStandard:courageFactor+=10;else if difficultyHard:courageFactor+=20; else if difficultyHarder:courageFactor+=30; else if unlimitedRepeats:courageFactor+=0; if repeatMax3:courageFactor+=10; else if repeatMax2:courageFactor+=20; else if repeatMax1:courageFactor+=25; else if noRepeat:courageFactor+=30; if 10Words:courageFactor+=10; else if 15Words:courageFactor+=20; else if 20Words:courageFactor+=30; //zero aid bonus if(courageFactor == 90)courageFactor+=30; wrongFactor = 33 * wrongAnswers; FINAL_SCORE= correctnessFactor +executionFactor+courageFactor-wrongFactor
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3.2.5 Spelling Words lists Spelling Bee Ninja heavily relies on words list. Words list are word sets than can be named, saved and used for studying and taking spelling tests. Spelling lists can be printed, embedded on web pages and shared with classmates. Spelling lists can be public, private or visible only to students belonging to a given user account. The following paragraphs explain how to manage spelling lists with SBN.
3.2.6 My Words section “My words” is a l temporary list used like a basket where collecting words that will then be saved as Spelling Lists. While navigating the SBN web app you will meet a lot of words, for instance in report cards or using the search engine or while browsing the “Words and Lists” section. Close to each word you will often find a button “Add Word” or “Add to my words” with a basket icon, pressing the button will add the related word in your basket, if the word is already present in “My Words”, you will find a “Remove” button instead.
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You can access to your list anytime choosing “My Words” from top menu, the page will show all the words contained in the list, the corresponding grade and the following action buttons:
Copy Copies the words contained in My Words in the device clipboard, words will be copied as a single string separated by comma “,”; ready to be pasted somewhere else (for example in a text file or a spreadsheet) Save Saves the collected words into a new spelling list. A dialog box will appear asking to specify a name for the list and a visibility scope, see the paragraph “Create a spelling list” for further details. Add to List Adds the words to an existing spelling list, see the paragraph “Create a spelling list” for further details. Import words Import an arbitrary text snippet into “My Words”, ready to be saved as a spelling list, check the next paragraph for details on importing lists. Empty Delete all the words contained in “My Words”. Please note that “My Words” list is just a temporary area and will reset each time your session expires.
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3.2.7 Working with spelling lists Now that you know the purpose of “My Words“ section, you are ready to have a deeper look to spelling lists related operations. Your personal spelling list section is accessible from your account menu (the one labeled with your user name), click “My Spelling List”. From here you have access to all the features related to spelling lists, let’s see these features in details.
3.2.7.1 Create and delete a Spelling List To create a new spelling list, click the “Create new list” button on top of the page, the spelling bee creation dialog will pop up:
Specify a name for your list and a visibility; the visibility can be private, visible to students and public: Private List Choose “Keep this list private” if you want limit the visibility for this list to your account, keeping the list hidden from anyone else. Visible to students If you are a teacher and want the list to be used by your invited students, but still hidden from anyone else, then choose “Make this list visible only to my students”. Public list The third option labeled “Make this list visible to all the students of the world” will make your list public. A public list can be viewed (not edited) by anyone that knows the list address. Moreover, a public list could be marked as “featured” by SBN staff and appear in the “Featured Mastering Spelling Bee v.1.3.0
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Lists“ section of the website. A public list can be embedded into any website by adding an html code snippet (see the paragraph: “Embed a list into a web page”). Click “Create” to proceed, your newly created list will be listed in the page, lists are alphabetically ordered. Delete a list If you want to delete a previously created spelling list, from "My Spelling Lists" page, you can use the red button labeled with a trash can icon corresponding to the list you want to delete.
3.2.7.2 Viewing and Editing lists To view a list from “My Spelling lists” page, just click the list name, to edit a list click the “Edit” button in the corresponding row. The image below shows the options available when viewing a list:
While viewing a list, switch to edit mode by pressing the “Edit” button on the top. From the edit page, switch back to view mode by clicking the link labeled with the name of the list at the top of the page. The image below shows the options available when editing a list:
When in edit mode, use the “Change” button to change the attributes of your spelling list such as list name and visibility.
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3.2.7.3 Add and import words to a list There are two ways to add words to a list, the first way is collecting the words into “My Words” section and then choosing “Save” or “Add to List” (see paragraph My Words section). The second method is to add your words directly into the list using the “Import words” feature. To import words into your list: 1) Reach the Edit page for your list. Click “My Spelling lists” under your account, then click the edit button corresponding to your list in the table. 2) Open the import dialog: Click the “Import words” button at the top of the page:
3) Enter the words you’d like to import in the text area. You can also paste them from another source like a web page or a text file. Valid word separators are spaces, tabs, newlines, special character. Each word has to be at least three characters long and must be composed only of letters from the English alphabet. 4) Press Ok when ready to import, the words will be added to your spelling list, after import, the system will present a report of the words imported, the skipped ones and eventual errors occurred.
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3.2.7.4 Remove words from a list To remove words from a list: 1) Reach the list page in Edit mode, 2) To remove specific words click the “Remove” button corresponding to the word you want to remove in the words list, I 3) In case you want to remove all the words contained in a list, click the “Empty” button, as shown in the image below.
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3.2.7.5 Cloning a Spelling List All visible lists can be cloned. When cloning a list you will obtain a new list in “My List” Section containing the same words as the cloned one, ready to be modified and used for different purposes. Every public list can be cloned, including the ones in the Featured lists section. Of course you can also clone all of your lists and error lists. To clone a list: Reach out the list page in view or edit mode 1. Click the “Clone” button 2. A popup will appear, specify a name and visibility scope for the list 3. Press the “Clone” button in the dialog
The cloned list will be added in your “My List” section.
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3.2.7.7 Flash cards The “Flash Card” button will show up a dialog containing Flash Cards for the words in the curent list. Use this feature to memorize the words you have to learn, especially the one contained in the “Error List”.
Use the arrows on the sides to slide to next or previous card, on each card: i. Click the word to open the word’s page in another tab/window. ii. Click the speaker icon just beneath the word to listen the pronunciation of the word. iii. Use the “Go to” drop down to jump to any word in the spelling list.
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3.2.7.8 Take a Spelling test using a specific list To take spelling tests using your custom spelling lists, proceed as follows: 1) Choose the “Spelling Test” option from a spelling list page (in both view and edit mode). 2) The new spelling bee dialog will pop up and the selected spelling list will be preset under the
“Words Source” option
3) Set your preferred options for this test and press “Start Test” .
In case the spelling list contains less words than the amount required for the spelling test, (the number of words set by the “Words per test” option), SBN will provide the missing words accordingly with the spelling test options, such as student grade, difficulty level and so on. The spelling test result will be marked as personal (see Spelling test options paragraph for further details).
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3.2.7.9 Embed a list into a web page Custom Spelling Lists created with spelling bee ninja can be embedded in third party websites. This feature provides a useful and easy to share spelling related homework with your students or to include words list pages in your website very quickly. The embedded list is presented within a responsive table to correctly show data on all kind of devices: desktop computers, tablets and mobile phones. Each row in the embedded list contains:
The word itself linking to the word card in SBN (the page will eventually open in a new browser tab)
A speaker icon to hear the right pronunciation of the word
The difficulty level (from Grade 1 to Grade 8 then High School and Very difficult).
To allow a list to be embedded in an external webpage you have to set the list visibility to Public; so if your list is not public, change its visibility first (check how to do it in the Viewing and Editing lists paragraph). Once you set the list as Public, choose the “Embed” button from in the list page (in view mode), a dialog containing the HTML code for the list will pop, as in the image below.
Copy the HTML code and paste it into your web page, if you want you can change the width and the height of the list within your page by changing the values specified by width and height parameter within the HTML code. This service is provided for free to every SBN user.
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3.2.8 Featured Lists This section of the Spelling Bee Ninja website offers public spelling lists that are well crafted by the SBN team. These lists are available to be used by every user. To access to the featured list section choose “Words and Lists” on the top menu and then “Featured Lists”. You will find here lists ready to be used for your training program, there are lists divided by student grade, but also themed lists, for example words coming from different roots such as Arabic words, Japanese words, Spanish words and so on. Some lists are related to the previous editions of the spelling bee, some other are related to SAT test. Also, there are lists containing the most used English words. Please check this section often as new spelling lists are constantly added.
3.2.9 Spelling Bee Search Engine Spelling Bee Ninja features a Spelling Bee related, search engine. The aim of the search engine is to provide users with spelling bee related information and insights on every single English word. Use this tool to find how difficult a word it is and how frequently it is misspelled by students, listen to the correct pronunciation and check the word definition. Collect the words into “My Words” basket to create custom spelling lists ready to be printed, shared or to be used for your personal spelling tests. Search engine is available to everyone, reach it out from the application dashboard or from the “Words and lists” menu on the top, choosing “Search words”.
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The engine homepage presents a text field where to enter your query and a Search button to launch the search routine. Enter here a specific word you are looking for or use special syntax to obtain sets of words to build up custom spelling lists. For example, if you want to get a set of random words suitable for a third grader you can just enter: grade:3 in the search box. The search engine will show you 10 suggestions. If you want to narrow your search to words starting by a given letter, you can add the starting letter to the query, for instance by entering: grade:3 w Again, you will get suggestion of words suitable for a grade 3 student starting with the letter w. If you specify more than one letter before the grade, then the engine will return words containing the specified letter in any position, not only at the beginning, example grade:3 we Will return spelling words for 3rd graders containing the sub string ‘ee’, as for instance ‘Agree’, ‘Between’, ‘Cheek’ and ‘Feeding’.
The % symbol is a wild card matching zero to many characters, so for instance a query like grade:3 b%e Will eventually match words like ‘Able’, ‘Above’, ‘Basket’, but also ‘Beach’, ‘Bear’ or ‘Because’.
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Search Results Results are provided in ten per page sets, click on the word to see the word’s page, containing the definition and more spelling bee related insights.
Click the Speaker icon to hear the word pronunciation, use the “Add Word” button beside the word of your interest to add it to “My Words” basket. At the top of the result page you can find up to three buttons: “Add all to my words”: click this button to add all the words displayed in “My Words” basket, ready to be saved to a new word list or added to an existing one. “Copy”: copies all the words displayed by the page separated by coma ‘,’n the clipboard of your device. “Get more words ideas”: search for more words of the same kind. Use these features to compose your custom spelling lists.
3.2.10 Spelling Bee Word Card When clicking on a word provided by the search engine and more in general within the SBN app, the related word card will be shown. The Spelling Word Card contains: the word definitions, a button to listen to the right pronunciation of the word and some spelling bee insights for the word, such as the difficulty level of the word from Grade 1 to Very Difficult and the percentage of students that spelled the words correctly during spelling tests.
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Section 4: Practical guides
4 SECTION 4
Practical Guides
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4.1 Introduction In this section you will find a set of practical tips, ideas, resources and practical giudes to improve spelling and train for spelling bee. Many are going to use the tools offered Spelling Bee Ninja app and website, so if you need further information please refer to the section 3 where you will find detailed instruction for using all the featured offered by the SBN platform.
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4.2 How to start your spelling bee training 4.2.1: Getting familiar with the competition itself Knowing about the competition you are participating in is part of the preparation. You need to familiarize yourself with the rules and regulations of the competition. Besides, you should also take your time to go through the spelling words of the previous competitions just to get a basic idea of the difficulty level. This will help you understand what you are putting yourself into and thus, you can prepare accordingly. Check out the chapters 1.4 and 1.5 of this manual to get an idea of the spelling bee you are participating in.
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4.2.2: Preparing a well planned spelling bee training schedule The earlier you start your preparations for the spelling bee, the better. Remember, as a school student, the spelling bee should not be your only priority. You will have studies, extra curricular activities, and other things to attend to. Prepare a study schedule for the spelling bee and set up goals that you need to complete within a fixed date. This will help you make progress in a steady and planned manner.
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4.2.3: Learning the spelling bee word lists Spelling bee word lists are the most important resources for spelling bee participants. Word lists are categorized according to grades or difficulty levels. Start from the lower levels and make your way to the harder word lists. Spell out each word loudly and write them down multiple times so that you do not forget them. Read, write, and repeat - this is the mantra you need to chant to yourself if you want to conquer all the spelling bee words from those word lists. Find lists in the Resources section of this manual or directly on the SBN website.
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4.2.4: Isolating the difficult words As you go through the word lists, you will come across certain words that might be unknown to you or difficult to spell. It is natural that you will not be familiar with all the words on your word lists. If you are unable to learn these new or difficult words at your first attempt, it is in your best interest to isolate them. Just note down all the words that are causing you problems. We will be dealing with them in a special manner.
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4.2.5: Making a custom list with the isolated words Take the words you isolated in step 4, and prepare a new word list with them. This new word list will be used to master all those difficult words you failed to memorize. While preparing a custom word list, it is recommended to use the Spelling Bee Ninja app’s custom word list feature. That way, you can not only create a printable custom word list, but can also create flashcards directly from the custom list.
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4.2.6: Using flashcards to learn the spelling bee words Flashcards have the word written on one side of the card and its respective meaning on the other. The human mind is able to memorize something quicker if they can store it in their memory in the form of a visual. Flashcards use this ability to their advantage, especially when it comes to spelling bee training. By using flashcards, we will be able to memorize the spelling bee words much faster and with little effort.
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4.2.7: Diving deeper into the spelling bee words with etymology Etymology is the study of the origin or history of words. Etymology deals with the roots of the words. It helps to trace the words back to their original forms. Etymology is important for every speller, especially when you come across difficult or complex words. You will see that such difficult spelling words are easier to grasp when you break them down into smaller chunks which in this case, are the root words. Not all the words on your spelling bee word lists need to be learnt with their corresponding root words. Just do the difficult ones.
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4.2.8: Trying out online spelling tests You are done with your spelling bee words. Now all that is left is to see how good you are with those words. The best way to do so is to take an online spelling test. Hop over to Spelling Bee Ninja and take as many spelling tests as you can over there. Be sure to use the custom word list you had prepared earlier in step 5. Use the Spelling Test app and Smart Trainer feature with different word lists.
4.2.9: Determining how prepared you are Since you are taking online spelling tests, be sure to check your rankings to understand where you stand with your vocabulary and how well prepared you are for the spelling bee. Check your statistics or report after every test you take. Remember, you need to do better and bring improvement upon yourself with each test you take. That way, you can determine how your preparation is so far and what you should be doing next to bring further improvement. That is all for your spelling bee training. Hope you utilize these steps properly and put in your best effort. Best of luck!
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4.3 How to increase your chances of winning the Spelling Bee To win the spelling bee is a mammoth task. It takes one a lot of hard work and dedication if they are to have any chance of winning the spelling bee. But what can you do to win? What did the previous champions do to win the spelling bee? For your ease, we will be dividing the steps into two distinct stages 1. The preparation phase 2. The competition phase
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Preparation phase 4.3.1 Use the proper resources There are many spelling bee resources available on the internet. Almost each one of them claims that it can help you win the spelling bee. However, despite the existence of such a huge volume of resources, not all of them are good or will be of much use. To win the spelling bee, you need to stack up on some of the most important and best spelling bee resources. Resources include word lists, spelling bee related articles, tips and tricks, online spelling bee platforms. You need to make a decision and choose from the vast collections available at your disposal.
Head over to Spelling Bee Ninja (SBN), one of the world’s leading online spelling bee platforms. From word lists, to online spelling bee training, SBN will provide you with all your spelling bee related wants and queries.
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4.3.2 Practice makes the perfect speller The universal mantra for memorizing anything is simple - read, write, and repeat. You will have to use this as well if you are willing to learn your spelling bee word lists quickly. Set up a routine and daily goals. For instance, target 50 words everyday. Accomplish one goal and move on to the next. Practice the spellings regularly by taking online tests. Note down the difficult words and prepare a separate word list with them. Practice these difficult ones more rigorously. Leave no stone unturned while practicing if you truly want to win the spelling bee.
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4.3.3 Train smart and give online tests to know where you stand Once you have enough practice, take spelling tests online to see where you stand with your spelling. Start with the easier word lists and gradually make your way to the harder ones. To take online spelling tests, try the SBN online test app. Here, you can use custom word lists as well to train yourself. The app is easy to use with a friendly UI. You should also use the SBN Smart Trainer for your practice. The Smart Trainer will take note of the words you misspell and will keep repeating them in the subsequent tests you take until you get them right. That way, you cannot escape those difficult spelling bee words that haunt you in your sleep.
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4.3.4 Give emphasis on the difficult words The words that are unknown or seem difficult to you should be given special priority during your preparation. You should identify these words based on their difficulty level as well as how uncommon these are in your everyday use of the English language. The best way to work with such words is by isolating them and creating a separate word list. To win the spelling bee, you must overcome your fear of such difficult or uncommon words. Once you have created the word list with this difficult set of words, your next task will be to approach them systematically. Take online spelling tests using this word list. Spelling Bee Ninja gives its members the opportunity to create custom word lists and flashcards. You can then use this word list to create flashcards or give online spelling tests as mentioned earlier.
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4.3.5 Have a good rest the day prior to the event Be sure to get a good rest the day before the competition. Eat healthy and avoid all types of junk food if you can. Do not get yourself too tired before the competition. You cannot let fatigue or lethargy take over your body.
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During the competition 4.3.6 Don’t get intimidated by long words Remember, all the long or complex words you see are nothing but combinations of smaller words or parts of words. Long words can easily intimidate you, especially if you are completely unfamiliar with them. The trick to learning such difficult words is breaking them down into their root or origin words. Approach these words with a divide and conquer policy. Etymology is very useful when it comes to learning the root words or origin of a certain word.
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4.3.7 Don’t rush your answers if you want to win the spelling bee Once the announcer at the event reads out the word for you to spell out, wait for a few seconds before you spell it out loud, even if you are confident that you know the correct spelling. Rushing your answer might lead you to misspell the word unconsciously. Listen to the word carefully, ask for its meaning and a sentence, and then ask the announcer to repeat the word again. Then, pretend writing the word down on your palm with your finger, and spell out the word afterwards. That way, you will be able to reduce your chances of making silly mistakes.
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4.3.8 Overcoming the fear of public speaking At the spelling bee competition, you will be speaking in front of a large audience. Whatever happens, you cannot lose your cool and let your fear of public speaking get the better of you. Stay confident while speaking. If looking at the crowd makes you nervous, close your eyes while spelling. Remember, this fear or nervousness might just cost you the spelling bee championship.
Spelling Bee Ninja is constantly providing its users and visitors with a variety of spelling bee related articles. We are also updating the features of our platform so that spelling bee participants and enthusiasts can be benefited, so stay tuned to get more ideas and suggestion for your training.
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4.4 SBN Spelling tools quick overview Although there is a vast collection of spelling bee tools and resources on the internet, not all of them are fit to serve your purpose. In order to reap maximum benefits from these tools, you need to choose the right one. In these paragraphs, we will be discussing about these spelling bee tools offered by the SBN platform.
4.4.1 The Spelling Bee Ninja website
Spelling Bee Ninja is one of the most popular EdTech platforms among spelling bee enthusiasts. The website is home to a lot of spelling bee, and vocabulary enhancement resources such as articles, word lists, and so on. It is basically a one-stop shop catering to all your spelling and spelling bee needs. Spelling Bee Ninja is not like the everyday spelling bee tools that you see on the internet. In fact, it is an entire package of such tools and resources that have been developed to assist in the memorization and retention of the spelling bee words.
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4.4.2 - Spelling words lists
Every spelling bee preparation begins with a set of word lists. These lists contain words that are indispensable for your preparation. Word lists come in different difficulty levels. Usually, these word lists vary from one grade to another. The higher the grade, the more difficult the list gets. If you are truly interested in winning a spelling bee or at least making it far into the competition, you should study these word lists by heart. Proceed to a list of higher difficulty only when you are done with the one before it. Remember, word lists are the most important spelling bee tools. Put them into good use. Find Spelling Words Lists by grade at: https://www.spellingbee.ninja/category/words-list/
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4.4.3 - Featured word lists
The featured word lists include lists composed by Spelling Bee Ninja users. The word lists in this section include Arabic words, Japanese words, Latin words, difficult SAT words, and so on. As you can tell from the examples, the featured word lists are not made for any particular grade or group. These lists should be approached once you are done with the other spelling bee word lists. Find Featured Spelling Words Lists at: https://mai.spellingbee.ninja/featuredlists
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4.4.4 - Spelling search engine
The spelling search engine can be found right at the heart of the SBN app. It functions as a search engine for all your spelling and vocabulary related queries. Once you enter a word in the search bar of the engine, you will be redirected to a page where you will get to see different meanings of the word, whether or not it is part of an existing word list, what percentage of spellers are able to spell it correctly, and other information related to it.
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4.4.5 - Spelling Test and Smart Trainer
EdTech platforms dedicated to spelling bee are some of the best tools for learning spelling. These platforms take innovative approaches that can help you learn your spellings and improve your vocabulary retention capabilities. The Spelling Bee Ninja app has one of the best online spelling test platforms in the world. The test app has a simple and user friendly interface. It is capable of using word lists as per your choice. Not only that, you can even set the voice and make other small changes to suit you.
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4.4.6 - Error List As you use the SBN Spelling Test and Smart Trainer features, you will be introduced to your error list. The error list will contain a list of misspelled spelling words. These words were misspelled at some point in your sessions with the SBN app. Thanks to this error list, you will be able to know which words can be problematic for you. Not only that, the error list will be reusing the misspelled words in later spelling tests (with the Smart Trainer). In this way, not only will you get to know which words are difficult for you, but you will also be prompted to learn them thanks to this re-usability feature of the app.
4.4.7 - Spelling flashcards
Flashcards refer to cards or small pieces of paper having information written on both sides. They help in memorization and retention of useful words and phrases. Flashcards are very important when it comes to learning spellings and their corresponding meanings. Spelling bee participants use them to get acquainted with their words. Flash cards are able to create a mental image of the word and its meaning inside our minds. They utilize the human mind's ability to imprint visual images on our brains. As scientific research suggests, we are able to capture something quicker if we can imprint its image inside our brain. Spelling Bee Ninja provides its users with the options to create such flashcards from both the existing word lists as well as from the custom word lists.
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4.5 Words Lists and flashcards reference guide Spelling words lists and flash cards can do a lot of good for your spelling practice. They help to bring out the best in your spelling and vocabulary retention capabilities.
4.5.1 Why use flashcards? A flash card refers to a card or a small piece of page that contains information on both sides. The purpose of such flash cards is to assist in the memorization as well as retention of useful words or phrases. These flash cards are very important when it comes to learning spellings and their corresponding meanings. Spelling bee participants are often advised to use such aid to get acquainted with their words. What makes flash cards so crucial in improving our vocabulary retention capabilities is their ability to create a mental image of the word and its meaning in our minds. These flash cards use the human mind's ability to imprint visual images on your brains. As science dictates, we are able to capture something quicker if we can imprint its image inside our brain. Flash cards manage to do just that. Thus, Spelling Bee Ninja is providing our users with the options to create spelling words lists and flash cards. The combined output of your custom made spelling words lists and the flash cards will allow you to digest those difficult and hard to grasp words in just minutes.
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4.5.2 Redirecting to the Spelling Bee Ninja App Open your browser and visit the address mai.spellingbee.ninja. This will take you to the Spelling Bee Ninja App. If you want, you can visit the Spelling Bee Ninja website and click on the ‘SBN App’ tab to do the same.
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4.5.3 Signing in Now, you need to sign into SBN. If you don’t have an account, you can create one at www.spellingbee.ninja. Spelling Bee Ninja provides its users with a many tools, resources and useful articles all of which, are related to spelling and spelling bees. We are one of the leading EdTech platforms dedicated to spelling bees and vocabulary enhancement. Stay with us for the ultimate learning experience.
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4.5.4 Redirecting to the ‘My Spelling Lists’ section Time to create your custom word list. Look at the top bar, and to the extreme right, you will see a drop down menu with your user name on it. Hover over it, and the drop down menu will appear. Now, click on the ‘My Spelling Lists’ option and it will take you to custom word list page.
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4.5.5 Creating custom spelling words lists Once the custom word list page appears before you, hit the blue icon that says ‘Create new list’ and a pop-up window will appear right in front of you on your screen.
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4.5.6 Giving the custom word list a name This pop-up window is where you get to name your new custom word list and set its visibility. If you set visibility to ‘private’, only you can see it. If set to ‘public’ other SBN members or schools can see and use it as well.
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4.5.7 Entering the words in the list Locate the blue icon that says ‘Import Words’ and you will see another pop-up window open up on your screen. Here, you will notice a text box where you can insert or paste your desired words; 5000 is the character limit and only English alphabets are allowed. Valid separators are space, new line or symbols. Once you paste the words and hit ‘Ok’, custom word list will be ready.
You can now use this new word list for flash cards as well as the Spelling Test function on SBN.
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4.5.8 Using the custom word list in flash cards To use the Spelling Bee Ninja flash card option, just go to any spelling list you want (including your custom spelling word list) and you’ll see the option of flash cards on a blue icon. Click on it, and you’ll have your flash cards ready. For the custom word list flash cards, go to the My Spelling Lists section and click on the list you created. Locate the option for flash card there and do the same.
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4.5.9 Using the custom word list in Spelling Test The second option from the left on the top navigation bar will redirect you to the Spelling Bee Ninja App’s Spelling Test. Once you enter, you will see a test bot on your screen along with a pop-up. On the pop-up, choose set the word source to your desired list, which can either be the ones available on SBN or the custom list you prepared. Set it as per your wish, and get started.
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4.6 Organizing a spelling bee event If you want to organize a spelling bee at your school, there are certain things that you need to keep in mind. To organize such an event, you need to deploy tactics that will cater to your purpose in an efficient manner. Having said all that, such spelling bee competitions are not that easy to organize. As you proceed with the preparations, you are bound to face certain difficulties. In this article, we will guide you on how you can organize a spelling bee, and provide suggestions as to how you can actually make it big.
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4.6.1 Fixing a date The date of the spelling bee should be set based on a few conditions. These are as follows: i. There is no exam up to at least two weeks after the competition. ii. Participants have time to prepare for the event. iii. Organizers must have at least a month to prepare everything. iv. The regional or national spelling bee is at least a week after the event. This will allow participants to work on their mistakes or weaknesses with sufficient amount of time in their hands before the main thing kicks off. v. You must also consider your school’s academic calendar before you decide the date of the competition.
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4.6.2 Choosing a venue There are a few things you need to keep in mind before you choose the venue of your spelling bee. Firstly, you need to see if the spelling bee will be class wise or for the entire school. Based on that, you can either organize the bee inside the classrooms, or in the school auditorium. Secondly, the number of participants is also a factor you need to look into. If your class has a large number of students, you cannot manage the event inside the classrooms. Hence, even if it is held class wise, you need to opt for a bigger venue. Finally, if you are going to allow an audience (which is recommended) to attend the staging sessions, you must go for a larger venue. Hence, decide on all these factors first and then go for a suitable venue.
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4.6.3 Forming a dedicated team to organize a spelling bee Form a dedicated organizing team with a few faculty members, administrative staff members, and a few senior students. If there are veteran or former spelling bee participants, who have done well in their time, in your school, you can assign them as mentors for the ones participating in the school bee. Divide the responsibilities accordingly. A minimum of three to four people should be stationed for stage duty and resource management. One additional person should be present at all times to assist the announcer. Another team should be stationed for crowd control. The number of people in this team will depend on the estimated size of your audience. There should also be a separate team to manage the publicity of the event. Each team must have a faculty member to lead or guide them. Make sure they are well rehearsed and are aware of their responsibilities. Remember, if you want to successfully organize a spelling bee, teamwork is of utmost importance.
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4.6.4 Letting people know No matter how big or small the event is, you should make sure that everyone at school is aware of it. In fact, you should also take advantage of your school’s website and social media accounts, and publicize the event even more. If you have sufficient funding or resources, and expect an audience to be present at the event, you should distribute a few posters around the school too. This little promotion campaign will not only help in the publicity of your school, but it might also help you attract sponsors. Sponsors are always appreciated, especially if you are thinking of having a prize pool for the winners. It might also encourage other schools to organize a spelling bee at their institutions, helping in the overall development of this educational activity.
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4.6.5 Knowing the participants Take note of your participants and their corresponding grades. If they have signed up for any upcoming spelling bee, note that down too. First divide the participants according to their grades. Then, write down the spelling bee they plan on participating in. While you do so, see if any speller has participated in the spelling bee before, and if they did, note down their position at that spelling competition. All this information will be useful when you prepare the word lists for the spelling bee.
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4.6.6 Selecting a panel and announcer The panel will be responsible for assessment of the participants during the competition. The announcer or pronouncer should be someone who is fluent in English (or the preferred language of the spelling bee) and has a flawless pronunciation.
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4.6.7 Deciding on the competition rounds The standard on-campus spelling bee or school bee should consist of at least two rounds - the first round or the preliminaries, and the final round. The length of the competition or the number of rounds can be adjusted with accordance to the number of participants.
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4.6.8 Announcing a prize pool It is not mandatory to have a prize pool for a mock spelling bee. But if you have sufficient funding, you can go ahead and award the winners or top position holders. What you are handing out as prizes is not that important. Crests or certificates and a winner’s trophy/medal is more than sufficient. If you are looking to hand out something more than this, you can always go for books, spelling bee handbooks, or even vouchers for online spelling bee platforms.
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4.6.9 Choosing the words Choose the spelling bee words according to the grades. Find a selection of the spelling words listed specifically for spelling bee competitions on the spelling bee ninja website. You should also ensure that the difficulty level of the spellings is increased as the competition proceeds into the next rounds.
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4.6.10 Print large flashcards The flashcards can be shown to the participants when the announcer is reading out the word to be spelled. Someone is to be stationed with those cards and should show the meaning side of the flashcards to the participants while the pronouncer is reading out the word. The size of the flashcards as well as the font being used should be big enough for the participants to see. Use a standard font (Times New Roman or Arial) for the flashcards. You can print flashcards for the word lists mentioned above (Point 9) from Spelling Bee Ninja.
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4.6.11 How the competition proceeds The word stacks should contain the words to be read out, and these stacks are to be arranged according to the on-going round. For instance, the first round will contain the easier words, or anything from grade 1 to 5. The competition has to be elimination based. If you fail to spell a word, you are eliminated. Each speller will be given a minute to spell the word. If no one is eliminated once the stack is over, the stack containing the difficult words is to be immediately introduced. To make sure you don’t run out of words, your word list should contain enough words such that there are three words for each student. In case the number of words is high, ditch the large flashcards option and go for a digital screen if you can. A teleprompter for the participant doing the word of the flashcards.
4.6.12 How the answers are to be provided Participants are to spell out the word standing in front of the microphone, facing the panel and the audience. They are allowed 1 minute for each word. Within the first 45 seconds of that one minute, they need to ask for the sentence (maximum 2) and the repetition of the word. After the first 45 seconds are over, they may NOT ask for these anymore.
4.6.13 How the winner is to be declared The winner will be the last one remaining. The other positions can be awarded depending on how long the participants took to spell all their words. The ones who took less time will be given the 1st and 2nd runners-up position, as per their times.
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Section 5: Spelling Bee Resources
5 SECTION 5
Spelling Bee Resources
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5.1 Spelling Words Lists The following pages contain spelling words lists divided by grade, ready to be printed for for your training. Lists are generated by Spelling Bee Ninja, you can find these and more lists online at the following address: https://mai.spelingbee.ninja/featurdlists’ If you are reading this manual in electronic format, you can click on each word in the lists to see the related word card under Spelling Bee Ninja.
Remember: you can create your own Spelling List, print them and use for Spelling Tests using our web app at: https://www.spellingbee.ninja/app
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5.1.1 1st grade Spelling Words Baby Bus Clam Cool Cow Crop Did Dig Down Fill Flow Fort Gas Grin Hand Hill Into Jet Keep Lap Leap Light Lip Live Load Lot Low Lump Mad
Mat Man Moon Much Name News Next Noon Now Out Pad Pin Plant Pond Punch Pup Ran Rid Rob Rope Rub Rubber Rug Rut Sack Sad Sake Same Saw
Make
Seed
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Set Shark Sheep Shy Sip Sit Slow Snow Soak Spin Stop Story Tab Tag Tall Tap Ten The Thing Took Train Trap Try Wet What Will Wing Wipe Word
5.1.2 2nd grade Spelling Words After Aid Ajar Ate Backpack Bad Bag Barge Bear Before Being Best Bigger Birth Bitten Block Blunt Bolt Both Brother Camping Chase Chest Chips City Clean Cluck Cold Corn Count
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Crush Cuff Daybreak Dew Doing Elf Field Fight Flights Give Grins Happy High Hire Hold Hope Horse House Land Liked Looking Miss Must Nine Oak Orange Our Pack Paws Pike
Plate Pony Put Rabbit Recover Rest Rose Saved Seen Singer Slid Socks Soft Stamp Summer Swim Taste Telling Ton Trick Tube Undo Unkind Vent Watchfully Water Went West While Wren
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5.1.3 3rd grade Spelling Words About Above Afternoon Barefoot Batch Behind Born Bottles Bushes Campfire Catch Chain Claw Cloth Color Compost Corner Cosmic Cross Crunch Damage Disappear Dishes Done Dull Enjoyed Everything Eyelid Fellow Fireplace
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Funny Fuzz Given Grades Grip Hammer Harvest Heart Hello Hiding Hotter Howled Hundred Hunting Important Join Kids Kitten Knee Knew Lady Learn Liking Limp Loving Merry Money Neighbor Own Padlock
Piece Point Prop Quickly Radio Sandy Saturday Scare School Smart Sometime Sorry Thick Thorn Thousand Threw Thrilling Tired Together Tonight Topical Trash Tricky Tulip Until Usher Vast View Voice Wild
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5.1.4 4th grade Spelling Words Addition Alphabet Although Annoyed Apricot Arrived Aunt Avoided Azure Bambino Beaten Belonged Bleak Bloodhound Boost Camera Candle Carving Cellar Churches Conflict County Daughter Deal
Floating Forkful Fruit Gang Glare Grown Horrid Hurried Impossible Injured Library Lukewarm Manner Monkey Moreover Mossy Motor National Offer Oval Oxen Painfully Paper Parts
Depend
Paste
Determined
Pointing
Difficult
Pour
District
Problem
Doubtful
Purse
Eighteen
Raccoon
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Relocate Retell Reusable Risk Safe Scariest Shadow Sharp Shin Situation Slumber Sniff Spiders Sprinkle Squirt Starved Sudden Suggested Surprise Tightrope Unfolding Unlike Urge Voices
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5.1.5 5th grade Spelling Words Adaptation Adjourn Adjourned Adopt Agent Amused Annual Applaud Awfully Beggary Boast Boastful Boysenberry Buoyancy Celebration Cinders Clothesline Convertible Counselor Crinkly Crises Crumble Descend Disgust Distance Distribute Doubly Earthquake Enthralling Essay
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Garment Handwriting Hardship Haven Importance Inadvertence Indignant Intercession Invalid Junior License Loathe Merchant Methodical Midland Missile Mortal Numeral Optic Parent Peninsula Permit Pictures Plumes Portal Powder Powerless Prescription Presume Preventable
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Rebellious Refer Repetition Rescue Resignation Resistance Reveled Section Sense Sensible Slippery Stable Steward Substance Success Tornado Trail Trepidation Tying Type Umbrella Unceasing Undeniable Unfortunately Unison Velocity Volunteer Warmth Welfare Whining
5.1.6 6th grade Spelling Words Absolutely Agitation Answered Aquatic Article Backwards Basketball Bomb Bough Broadcast Carbohydrates Carrying Chopstick Chose Citizen Coincidence Commercial Correctional Croissant Decided Deciding Defensiveness Descendant Dictate Dinosaurs Disdainfully Disturbance Dominoes Dynamite Earning
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Enduring Enlisted Excess Exhale Exterior Feasible Fellowship Fertilize Formerly Fraction Garage Hobbies Impose Informal Intent Interfering Invincible League Levied Lotion Married Marshal Measles Mechanic Memories Monarch Musician Neighborhood Officers Opponent
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Overpriced Parachute Parentheses Performance Pitied Porpoise Postwar Preschool Preserved Productivity Puffs Recently Recommendation Refrigerator Regents Reinforcement Remiss Resemble Resolution Responsible Rotting Scholar Shakiness Shortage Simply Simulate Spectator Spinning Telecommunication Toughening
5.1.7 7th grade Spelling Words Abject Admonish Alias Atoll Bankrupt Bicycle Boggle Boisterously Brevity Caldron Cemetery Chamber Chord Cinematographer Coercive Collaborate Collection Colonel Commingle Compose Contempt Cower Dampen Decelerate Decipher Detract Disclose Disproportionate Effectuate Encamp
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Endeavour Enrich Entrepreneurs Exonerate Facile Familiar Function Gauche Govern Gruel Guileless Happiness Havoc Heckle Herbivorous Hybrid Hygiene Idler Ignominy Impecunious Indomitable Initially Javelin Jinx Jostle Kindling Knitting Lucid Macaroon Merrily
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Monsieur Morsel Negligent Nubby Occasion Opaque Paragraph Passive Phrase Poinsettia Prevision Profligate Questionnaire Rapscallion Reciprocal Redeem Respite Riddle Scenery Secure Sierra Sincerely Sinewy Stereo Umbrage Unscathed Waft Wily Wither Worsted
5.1.8 8th grade Spelling Words Acacias Accusations Affiliate Amateur Amid Annexation Anonymous Apology Aquaplane Asphalt Auspices Auspicious Avalanche Aviator Avocations Awkward Belligerent Bickering Centripetal Commuter Connubial Crucial Customary Cylinder Deceitful Discontinues Disingenuous Disoblige Divine Dragnet
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Expulsion Expunging Extravagant Flagrant Fledgling Forfeiture Frivolous Galaxy Generosity Germinate Gnarled Hallucinations Harness Haughty Headquarters Impractical Inexplicable Insoluble Intellectual Introduction Itemized Knickknack Lacquer Locality Manipulator Medicinal Molecules Mythos Obedient Oblivion
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Orthopedics Ovation Pang Passable Paucity Perpetuate Pessimistic Piccolo Piteously Possessed Precisely Privileged Putrefaction Regretting Relevant Religious Retrial Schooner Shepherds Shuddering Speculation Speculative Spiritual Stenciled Strenuous Stupefying Substitute Succulent Sympathized Upheave
5.1.9 High School grade Spelling Words Altruistic Antipathy Audacious Aversion Camouflage Cathartic Charisma Chronic Competitive Compliance Conscientious Cuisine Demarche Depict Deprecate Digression Electoral Elusive Equanimity Evanescent Explanation Figurative Foreigner Foresight Formula Foundation Fulfilled Gaiety Generate
Genial Gentleman Geta Glutton Gratifying Homogeneous Hyperbole Hypothetical Indefeasible Indiscriminate Ingenious Inherent Intrinsic Introspective Inundate Irresolute Jeweler Listlessness Magnate Meditative Militant Minuscule Momentous Monetary Motivate Nauseating Obdurate Obsessive Onomatopoeia
Generous
Palpable
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Patronizing Perjury Perturbed Petulant Phenomena Philanthropist Plausible Presumably Prodigious Prosecute Protagonist Recovery Regime Renegade Requeim Rigorous Sabotage Scrutinize Severity Shrewd Sociable Succinct Tantamount Threatening Transept Troubadour Undermine Violate Voluntary
5.1.10 Very Difficult Spelling Words Acclimatize Aerogramme Ankh Apostrophe Appaloosa Arriviste Aurochs Azimuth Bedraggled Bight Blandishment Borborygmus Cacophony Caliph Cantle Cassioberry Choreography Circumscribe Clerihew Corporeity Ctenii Cuirass Demesne Despot Duplicity Edelweiss Egueiite Emend Esophagus Etoliate
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Fractious Frankincense Fulsome Habiliments Hacienda Heterogenous Hydrangea Hyperpyrexia Impute Indubitable Inveterate Irrepressible Jalousie Klieg Legerdemain Morose Nebulous Nouveau Obfuscate Objurgate Obloquy Odontalgia Onerous Pachyderm Paean Peccadillo Penumbra Penurious Pergola Pertinacious
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Platitude Prescience Ptosis Quoin Quotidian Rarefy Raucous Redoubtable Rhathymia Sacroiliac Sarsaparilla Seneschal Simpatico Sleazy Sloe Sphinx Staphylococci Subcutaneous Suffrutescent Taciturn Tern Tirade Tortuous Umlaut Unwonted Wainscoting Wanton Wok Yurt Zinc
5.1.11 Frequently Misspelled Words
Absence Accommodate Achieve Acquire Across Address Advertise Advice Among Apparent Argument Athlete Awful Balance Basically Becoming Before Beginning Believe Benefit Breathe Brilliant Business Calendar Careful Category Ceiling Cemetery Certain Chief Citizen Coming Competition Convenience Criticize Decide Definite Deposit Describe Desperate Develop
Difference Dilemma Disappear Disappoint Discipline Does During Easily Eight Either Embarrass Environment Equipped Exaggerate Excellent Except Exercise Existence Expect Experience Experiment Explanation Familiar Fascinating Finally Foreign Forty Forward Friend Fundamental Generally Government Grammar Guarantee Guidance Happiness Heroes Humorous Identity Imaginary Imitation
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Immediately Incidentally Independent Intelligent Interesting Interfere Interpretation Interruption Invitation Irrelevant Irritable Island Jealous Judgment Knowledge Laboratory Laying Length Lesson Library License Loneliness Lose Losing Lying Marriage Mathematics Medicine Miniature Minute Mysterious Naturally Necessary Neighbor Neither Noticeable Occasion Occur Occurred Official Often
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Omission Operate Optimism Original Ought Paid Parallel Particularly Peculiar Perceive Perform Permanent Persevere Personally Persuade Picture Piece Planning Pleasant Political Possess Possible Practical Prefer Prejudice Presence Privilege Probably Professional Promise Proof Psychology Quantity Quarter Quiet Realize Receive Recognize Recommend Reference Religious
Repetition Restaurant Rhythm Ridiculous Sacrifice Safety Scissors Secretary Separate Shining Similar Sincerely Soldier Speech Stopping Strength Studying Succeed Successful Surely Surprise Temperature Temporary Thorough Through Toward Tries Truly Twelfth Until Unusual Using Usually Village Weather Weird Welcome Whether Writing
5.1.12 Latin Words Abdicate Conjecture Access Consensus Accommodate Contiguous Adjacent Corporal Affinity Corpuscle Aggregate Credentials Alleviate Credible Alliteration Crescent Ambiguity Current Ambivalent Curriculum Ameliorate Dejected Amicable Diary Animosity Discern Aquatic Discipline Bellicose Dissect Belligerent Ductile Benefactor Efficacy Benevolent Egregious Bugle Electoral Canary Erudite Candidate Exacerbate Canine Exuberant Capitulation Facetious Capricorn Fastidious Carnivore Femininity Cognition Fidelity Colloquial Filament Commensurate Foliate Condolences Formidable Confidence Gradient
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Gregarious Herbivore Humble Igneous Imperative Impetuous Implement Inane Incorruptible Incredulous Incriminate Indigenous Infinitesimal Ingenious Innate Innocuous Insidious Interrupt Intractable Jovial Library Lucid Lunatic Magnanimous Measure Mediocre Mercurial Message Meticulous Nasal
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Necessary Obsequious Obstinate Ominous Omnipotent Omnivorous Opera Ostentatious Participant Patina Percolate Perennial Perfidy Pernicious Plausible Popularity Postmortem Precipice Precipitate Precocious Predicate Prerogative Prescription Primal Prodigal Prosaic Prosecute Providence Recalcitrant Refugee
Relevant Renovate Reptile Retrospective Ridiculous Rupture Simile Soliloquy Spectrum Strict Subterfuge Susceptible Temporal Tertiary Trajectory Transect Triumvirate Ubiquitous Unity Ventilate Vernacular Visceral Vivisection Vulnerable
5.1.13 Japanese Words
Banzai Futon Geisha Geta Haiku Hibachi Honcho Issei Kabuki Kami Karaoke Karate Kibei Koan Kudzu Kuruma Meiji Mikado Miso Ninja
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Nisei Odori Origami Ramen Romaji Samurai Sansei Sashimi Satori Sayonara Shogun Sukiyaki Sumo Sushi Tatami Teriyaki Tofu Tsunami Tycoon Wasabi
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5.1.14 More Asian Words
Asana
Gymkhana
Pandit
Bamboo
Holi
Pangolin
Bangle
Jackal
Patel
Basmati
Jiva
Prabhu
Batik
Jnana
Pundit
Bhalu
Juggernaut
Raita
Buddha
Jungle
Raj
Bungalow
Jute
Rupee
Charpoy
Kama
Seersucker
Chintz
Karma
Shampoo
Chutney
Kavya
Tanha
Cummerbund
Lahar
Topeng
Cushy
Loot
Typhoon
Dugong
Mahatma
Yamen
Dungaree
Mahout
Durwan
Mandir
Gingham
Masala
Gourami
Mongoose
Gunnysack
Nirvana
Guru
Oolong
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5.1.15 Arabic Words
Admiral Adobe Albatross Alcazar Alchemy Alcohol Alcove Alfalfa Algebra Algorithm Alim Alkali Apricot Arsenal Artichoke Average Azimuth Azure Bezoar Borax Camphor
Carafe Carmine Coffle Cotton Crimson Diffa Douane Elixir Fennec Foggara Gazelle Ghoul Giraffe Guitar Hafiz Halal Hazard Henna Imam Islamic Julep
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Khan Khor Lemon Lilac Macrame Magazine Mahal Marzipan Massage Mattress Mihrab Minaret Mohair Monsoon Mosque Mukhtar Mummy Muslin Nabob Nadir Nenuphar
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Orange Qatari Safari Saffron Salaam Sequin Serdab Serendipity Sugar Sultan Swahili Tahini Taj Talc Tamarind Tariff Tarragon Tuna Zenith Zero
5.1.16 Spanish Words Adios
Cordovan
Olio
Alamo
Desperado
Oregano
Alligator
Diablo
Peccadillo
Amarillo
Duenna
Picaresque
Anchovy
Embarcadero
Pochismo
Argentine
Embargo
Pueblo
Barrio
Empanada
Punctilio
Bolero
Enchilada
Quesadilla
Bolivar
Fandango
Ramada
Bonanza
Fiesta
Rasgado
Bongo
Filibuster
Rejoneador
Buffalo
Flamenco
Renegade
Burrito
Flotilla
Sarsaparilla
Caballero
Gazpacho
Sassafras
Cabana
Gordita
Sierra
Cafeteria
Hacienda
Sombrero
Canasta
Junco
Tomatillo
Castanets
Junta
Tornado
Cedilla
Langosta
Tortilla
Chalupa
Lariat
Vanilla
Chimichanga
Machismo
Vaquero
Chinchilla
Mantilla
Vigilante
Cilantro
Mariachi
Comandante
Mesa
Conquistador
Novillero
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5.1.17 Silent Words
Adios
Conquistador
Mesa
Alamo
Cordovan
Novillero
Alligator
Desperado
Olio
Amarillo
Diablo
Oregano
Anchovy
Duenna
Peccadillo
Argentine
Embarcadero
Picaresque
Barrio
Embargo
Pochismo
Bolero
Empanada
Pueblo
Bolivar
Enchilada
Punctilio
Bonanza
Fandango
Quesadilla
Bongo
Fiesta
Ramada
Buffalo
Filibuster
Rasgado
Burrito
Flamenco
Rejoneador
Caballero
Flotilla
Renegade
Cabana
Gazpacho
Sarsaparilla
Cafeteria
Gordita
Sassafras
Canasta
Hacienda
Sierra
Castanets
Junco
Sombrero
Cedilla
Junta
Tomatillo
Chalupa
Langosta
Tornado
Chimichanga
Lariat
Tortilla
Chinchilla
Machismo
Vanilla
Cilantro
Mantilla
Vaquero
Comandante
Mariachi
Vigilante
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5.1.18 Dolch Words Grade 1
After Again Any Ask Could Every Fly From Give Going Had Has Her Him His How Just Know Let
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Live May Old Once Open Over Put Round Some Stop Take Thank Them Then Think Walk Were When
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5.1.19 Dolch Words Grade 2
Always Around Because Been Before Best Both Buy Call Cold Does Don Fast First Five Found Gave Goes Green Its Made Many
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Off Pull Read Right Sing Sit Sleep Tell Their These Those Upon Use Very Wash Which Why Wish Work Would Write Your
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5.1.20 Dolch Words Grade 3
About Better
Laugh Light
Bring Carry Clean
Long Much Myself
Cut Done Draw
Never Only Own
Drink Eight Fall
Pick Seven Shall
Far Full Got
Show Six Small
Grow Hold Hot
Start Ten Today
Hurt Keep Kind
Together Try Warm
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5.2 Spelling Bee Sheet
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4.3 Spelling Bee Words Sheet Print this page, write in the cells up to 60 words per page, cut them along the dotted lines and extract them in your mock Spelling Bees.
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5.4 Spelling Bee Links Spelling Bee Ninja app https://www.spellingbee.ninja/app Spelling Words Lists by grade https://www.spellingbee.ninja/category/words-list/ Featured Spelling Words Lists https://mai.spellingbee.ninja/featuredlists Take a Spelling Test https://www.spellingbee.ninja/spelling-test Spelling Bee Search Engine https://mai.spellingbee.ninja/searchindex Merriam Webster Dictionary https://www.merriam-webster.com/
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