My children used to find spelling b-o-r-i-n-g! What to do? I have to admit, I always thought spelling was boring too! The words were just too easy! Then spelling bees came into my life. What fun! In 7th and 8th grades, I won the school spelling bees and got to compete downtown. Sadly, I never won for the city; I never made it to Washington DC. (Therefore, if you find any misspelled words in my blog, you’ll know why I never made it to Washington DC!) However, I had visions of fulfilling my dreams in my children! lol When they were old enough to compete, I inspired them with stories of the glory days of competition! lol
Even though they were easily excited about competition, we could never find the time to study. A couple of years ago I started rethinking our boxed curriculum to make a move to classical education. My children seemed to have hit a wall and needed a new boost. I finally made a huge decision! For the last few years we have abandoned traditional spelling programs and have studied exclusively for the spelling bee. This has proven more exciting to my children.
Our study list comes from the National Spelling Bee.
www.spellingbee.com
As soon as the list comes out early each autumn, we get our hands on the study booklets and start studying. We have done this various ways. Right now they work at their own speed. We set aside about 5-15 minutes a day for spelling. They choose their category and I quiz them until they miss 10. (This is 12yos first year to aim for 10. Before he got a list of 5.)
I’ve heard somewhere that most kids suffer in spelling because they tend to look at the whole word, when they should be seeing it sequentially. So I have told my kids to write the word 5x each (kinesthetic) while spelling it out loud (auditory) and they can see what they are doing (visual). They can also write the words in shaving cream or a sandbox, for texture input. (This in fact, is how I taught dd to read.) They are cool with just doing the pen and paper route. Actually, compliant dd took to this, but ds used to argue with it. It took a lot of prayer, character training and explaining to him that this is the method that his brain will best learn. I have told him that if he can learn any other way (inspired by learning styles author Cynthia Ulrich Tobias) then he can learn in those other ways. But other ways never work for my kids. They know if we don’t see the fruit, they are just going to have to do it Mom’s way. Finally, ds relented and has become a pretty good speller! He actually thinks more logically now about how a word should be spelled. So does dd!
The National Spelling Bee booklist has changed dramatically since I was my children’s ages. When I was a student, we got booklets with scores of words divided into three sections: beginning, intermediate and advanced. When my children started competing, the name of the book was Padeia and there were categories that would link well with unit studies. Within each category, the words were divided into beginning, intermediate and advanced. All that changed, to our initial dismay, last year.
The booklet was still divided into categories, but now they were by language of origin. Within each language of origin, the words were divided into the main list and the challenge words. There were also tips and game-like quizzes to go a higher level in applying the logic of language of origin. This year there was yet another change. I no longer need to mail order a booklet. We can now get them online and they are linked to the Merriam Webster dictionary.
We now prefer this new organizational method, by language of origin! Each particular language has its own particular rules. That is why the basic rules, which are the same as basic phonics rules, rarely work. The basic rules for words we learn to read first usually have their origin in the English language in the Middle Ages which was agrarian based. When words from other languages came into the English language, of course those words will follow different spelling patterns.
This has also allowed us to become better friends with our dictionary. The dictionary is actually interesting now! As we study our history in depth, the spelling rules make more sense to us and we have many ah-ha moments! There’s a lot of history, culture and adventure in a good dictionary! Have you looked lately? ;)
We now have a logical means of organizing our spelling notebooks. We have a tab for each language of origin.
We print out the word lists and study tips and stick them behind each category. If we ever want to add more words, we can tuck them into the proper category and learn what particular language of origin tips will help us out.
By the way, today was our local homeschool spelling bee. DS tied
for 6th
and dd placed 5th. Competition has done more than make spelling interesting for them. They are also learning composure in front of an audience and good sportsmanship. And who’s to know…maybe someday there will be a trip to Washington DC! ;)
