Spelling Bee prep materials

Spelling Bee is a competition in which contestants are asked to spell a broad selection of words, usually with a varying degree of difficulty. To compete, contestants must memorize the spellings of words as written in dictionaries and recite them accordingly.

The aim: to help students to improve their spelling, to increase their vocabulary, to learn concepts, and to develop correct English usage for a lifetime.

Preparation tips

1. Get the word list for your spelling bee. This list will reflect the difficulty level of the types of words you will be tested with. It will be the base for your own personal list of words to study and it might contain: 

FOR JUNIOR LEAGUE up-to Level Two Bee https://spellingbee.com/sites/default/files/inline-files/2022%20Words%20of%20the%20Champions.pdf

FOR SENIOR LEAGUE up-to Level Three Bee https://spellingbee.com/sites/default/files/inline-files/2022%20Words%20of%20the%20Champions.pdf

Keep in mind, however, that the list will not necessarily contain the exact words you will be tested with. 

Simply memorizing this list will not be sufficient for studying because it is meant to be used as a guide, rather than quiz material. It's best to also cover difficult words from anywhere, as spelling bees will turn to secret "off-list" words later in the competition.

The theme for this Spelling Bee 2020 word list will be around ”We are the World”. 

2. Isolate words you don’t know on the list. Keeping these words separate from the ones that you do know will give you an idea of how much studying you need to do. If you know the majority of the words on your list, consider trying the next level up of the spelling bee.

3. Learn root words. Etymology is incredibly important to understanding how words work in the English language. If you don’t know a word, you can often make an educated guess about its spelling depending on what root word(s) it may contain. Asking the origin of a word here is important. It can give you a clue to what root the word is derived from - unless it's an eponym.

4. Learn diacritics for pronunciation. Diacritics are the small symbols above words in the dictionary. Learning these will help you hear how a word should be officially pronounced. In the English language, words are often pronounced differently than they look on the page. So, you may have the spelling of a word memorized, but if the bee announcer pronounces it differently than you would, you may not think you know that word. 

5. Read, recite, and write alone. Read the dictionary, recite words aloud to yourself, and write words out on your own. This way, you’ll foster your own learning experience unfettered by other people’s ideas and associations. Ultimately, you will be on the spelling bee stage by yourself, so it’s a good idea to practice techniques that will best serve you when gearing up for the big day. Try to use the words in your everyday vocabulary, instead of just memorizing them, which will help both on the short term and the long term. 

1.     Each participant of the contest chooses a card with a number from a shuffled stack that corresponds to a card with a number of words (4 words) to be spelled by the bee pronouncer.

2.     The bee pronouncer (human or machine-origin) announces the word(s) from the assigned card to be spelled. He speaks slowly and clearly, without distorting the normal pronunciation of the word. He fives the definition of the word and uses the word in a sentence and says the word again. The pronunciation will be based on the American English one. 

3.     The speller listens carefully to the pronouncer and asks for the word to be repeated if necessary.

4.     When the speller is sure he or she understands the word, he pronounces it, spells it and then says the word again. He must say it loudly enough for the judge to hear it.

5.     The judge(s) determines whether the word was spelled correctly and assigns a number of points according to the complexity level of the word.

6.     Each participant will be given a chance to go through all the words in the assigned card irrespectively of how many correct or incorrect answers were provided. 

7.     If the spelling was incorrect, that pronouncer gives the correct spelling of that word. Then the pronouncer reads words from the new assigned card to the next student.

8.     Spellers with the highest results from each group pass to Finals. Words in the Finals are expected to come from the Highest Difficulty for the corresponding League.

9. Finals run as Elimination Round.

10. When there are only two spellers left, if one player misspells a word, the other player must spell that word correctly, plus one more word to be declared the winner of the spelling bee.

11.     The Committee are in complete control of the Spelling bee and their decision shall be final.