[SkyDancer]

Just curious but what good does a national spelling bee do? Are those words ever used in normal conversation? Are those kids going to impress someone? I feel that after they correctly spell one of those words they should be able to either define what it means or use it in a sentence .....

[politicket]

I feel that after they correctly spell one of those words they should be able to either define what it means or use it in a sentence ....

Most all of these kids know the full etymology of the words that they are spelling (as long as they know the word). The biggest thing that my son got out of the Bee was the extraordinary knowledge of Greek and Latin roots, which forms the base for a great amount of our English language.

We homeschool, and needless to say, he is done with his etymology studies clear through high school and he is only a seventh grader right now... :-)

[ruthles]

In Akeela and the Bee, the coach teaches which languages roots, suffixes, and prefixes come from such as greek, latin, germanic, so it teaches them vocabulary, history, etymology, etc. It's not just about spelling.