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... The first national spelling bee was held in 1925, and this year's competition will feature 273 spellers from the U.S. and around the world. Interestingly, English is not even the first language of 21 of those spellers, and Scripps reports that 102 of the contestants speak other languages, from Hebrew to Hindi. Given this amazing diversity united under one language, the author of America's first dictionary and the originator of uniform spelling in America (which makes the Bee possible!) would be proud. That's Noah Webster, to whom the Bee owes its official dictionary, "Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary." Webster...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's capital always draws its share of protesters, picketing for causes ranging from health care reform to immigration policy. But spelling bee protesters? They're out here, too. Four peaceful protesters, some dressed in full-length black and yellow bee costumes, represented the American Literacy Council and the London-based Spelling Society and stood outside the Grand Hyatt on Thursday, where the Scripps National Spelling Bee is being held. Their message was short: Simplify the way we spell words. Roberta Mahoney, 81, a former Fairfax County, Va. elementary school principal, said the current language obstructs 40 percent of the...

I just wanted to brag about my daughter today. She won her school spelling bee today. What is very remarkable is that she's only in the third grade and beat all the fourth and fifth graders. Her picture is going to be in our town's newspaper, as well. She's following in her dad's footsteps, I guess. ;-) I won 2 spelling bees (7th and 8th grade) when I was in school. She's a chip off the old block (vicariously bragging, sorry!) and we are all so very proud of her. BTW, She's in the gifted program at her school. Her...

A friend reminds me of the classic 1955 Esquire spelling test. In his words: Not one of eight hundred editors, teachers, proof readers, etc. got a perfect score on a test of sixty words. The test included the following twenty words, which were the twenty misspelled by the most test-takers. Notice that none of the usual stumbling blocks — separate, embarrass, inveigle, etc. — is in the list. When this test was given to a broad range of average Americans, six was the median score, twelve was attained by one person in ten, and eighteen "put you on the level of a...

I think I see a pattern here. When 13-year-old Kavya Shivashankar calmly spelled "Laodicean" this past Thursday to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee, she became the seventh Indian-American to take the title in the past 11 contests. As the Times of India boasted, at this point an Indian-American win at the Spelling Bee has "an air of inevitability." So Indian kids must have a natural advantage, right? Well actually, no. Consider the winner in 2004, David Tidmarsh, a fair-haired Midwestern boy whose ancestors never ventured anywhere near New Delhi. I spoke with David in between final rounds on the...

Meet Kavya Shivashankar, the National Spelling Bee winner. She can spell really well for a 7th grade girl, which for some reason got me thinking about Barack Obama. Unfortunately our president is not the brightest student. She won the National Spelling Bee for correctly spelling “Laodicean” after spelling a whole bunch of really long words correctly before. Kavya does not make rookie mistakes and is testament to the high-achieving American Dream. As a brief biography, Kavya Shivashankar is 13-years old from Blue State Kansas in small town of Olathe. This was her forth year in a row at the National...

The reigning national spelling champion is a 14-year-old kid whose one-liners kept everyone laughing a year ago. His parents moved to the United States from central India, and he wants to be a neurosurgeon when he grows up. Last year's runner-up -- and one of this year's favorites at the Scripps National Spelling Bee -- is an all-business 13-year-old Indian-American boy from Michigan. He's also set his sights on neurosurgery. Another favorite expected to be onstage for Thursday night's nationally televised finals is a 13-year-old Kansas girl with a sweet smile and a last name that's a spelling challenge unto...

Spelling Bee Sample Word List Grade 1: off, fan, keep, bath, wish, add, toy, fly, nice, paper Grade 2: about, care, size, only, lamb, hero, inch, left, bench, limit Grade 3: bulb, cage, clasp, hinge, modern, splash, cuddle, gallop, conain, misery Grade 4: fortress, locust, ignite, amount, young, quarrel, nonsense, spectator, satisfy, library Grade 5: icicle, boiler, minimum, confusion, prophet, emerge, skiing, foreign, acrylic, inability Grade 6: grocery, trowel, gauge, thymus, flimsy, tabloid, existence, satellite, elevation, obstacle Grade 7: hurtle, warp, habitat, utilize, glucose, thereupon, tabulate, fancywork, sequoia, escalator Grade 8: absolutize, artifice, mosaic, braille, penguin, cribbage, sarcasm, exhilarate, trenchant,...

WASHINGTON -- As it turned out, Sameer Mishra provided more than just comic relief at the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee. He ended up winning the title. The 13-year-old from West Lafayette, Ind., who often had the audience laughing with his one-line commentaries, was all business when he aced ''guerdon'' -- a word that appropriately means ''something that one has earned or gained'' -- to win the 81st version of the bee Friday night. ''I don't know about comedy lines, but my parents have been telling me since the beginning that I should always stay calm, cool and collected,'' said...

Evan O’Dorney always eats fish before his spelling bees. The brain food apparently has served him well: He’s the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion.

Evan O'Dorney always eats fish before his spelling bees. The brain food apparently has served him well: He's the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion. The 13-year-old from Danville, Calif., aced "serrefine" Thursday night to become the last youngster standing at the 80th annual bee. He won a tense duel with Nate Gartke of Spruce Grove, Alberta, who was trying to become the first Canadian to win the bee. Evan won a trophy and a $35,000 prize, plus a $5,000 scholarship, a $2,500 savings bond and a set of reference works. He said he knew how to spell the winning...

Ef u kan reed this, u must saport tha simplefied speling system. If you couldn’t read the previous statement due to typographical errors, you must be for the current spelling system, which is as strong as ever before. Proponents of a simplified spelling system argue that illiteracy rates would drop and childhood learning would grow at a faster rate. Opponents say that it would make spelling that much more confusing (it took me a few minutes just to write the opening line). Opponents only need to look at the National Spelling Bee for evidence that the current English spelling system...

The Patels chose the homeschool route for their son Samir because of his exceptional abilities. His mother Jyoti said at the age of five or six he started trying to spell words and has always been driven to learn. “I’m not as qualified as a teacher who has done it, but elementary is basic reading, math and all that stuff,” she said. “The advantage I’ve seen is that in the elementary grades, I have been able to push him to his capabilities. At the elementary level the most you might be able to do is go one grade ahead, because...

About a month ago, lights illuminated the stage at the Hyatt in Washington, D.C., 275 children sat waiting, listening and hoping. Under the lights and in the glare of the ESPN and ABC cameras, they weren’t just children; they were spellers, heroes and competitors. They sat poised before their turns. In front of the microphone, they let the nation glimpse their personalities as they worked their words. Scrawling on hands and arms, tracing on the back of name tags or silently contemplating the next letter. Whatever their technique, the same smile appeared as they completed their task correctly. Elated, they...

The U.S. national team faces a must-win situation Saturday against Italy (2:30 p.m. ET, ABC). The U.S. lineup could see some changes, including adding Eddie Johnson. Czech Republic and Ghana play earlier in the day (11:30 a.m., ABC), while Portugal advanced by beating Iran 2-0.

The National Spelling Bee began its first rounds today. All of the action can be followed at: www.spellingbee.com. Also, the championship rounds will be broadcast live on ABC (for the first time) beginning at 8PM EST Thursday evening. I'm placing my guess on Speller #238, Samir Patel, from Fort Worth, Texas. He will be worth the price of admission for you to watch tomorrow evening. He was HILARIOUS last year when we participated in the Bee!

Bees Gain Buzz, but Americans' Spelling Skills Decline BY VICKI HYMAN This year -- in June, in fact -- millions of Americans may be exposed to odontalgia, vivisepulture, xanthosis or succedaneum. The spelling bee, that quaint American folk tradition turned high-stakes Ironman for underage etymologists, has hit the big time. ABC plans to broadcast the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee live in prime time for the first time. Code red for logorrhea (excessive wordiness).Orthographers may one day look back on this as the golden age of competitive spelling. In the last six years, spelling has spawned a well-regarded 2000 novel...

Akeelah Anderson can spell. She can spell better than anyone in her school in South Central Los Angeles, and she might have a chance at the nationals. Who can say? She sees the National Spelling Bee on ESPN and is intrigued. But she is also wary, because in her school there is danger in being labeled a "brainiac," and it's wiser to keep your smarts to yourself. This is a tragedy in some predominantly black schools: Excellence is punished by the other students, possibly as an expression of their own low self-esteem. The thing with Akeelah (Keke Palmer) is that...

RENO, Nevada (AP) -- The state spelling bee is growing by two contestants to make up for a judging error that had one girl's parents ready to spell "lawsuit." Sara Beckman was disqualified from the Washoe County spelling bee Tuesday despite correctly spelling "discernible." Officials say the word was misspelled on the judges' lists. The Reno eighth-grader's parents said they waited until the end of the round to protest because they didn't want to interrupt the bee. But the rules say a protest must be lodged immediately and Sara ended up third. Her parents hired an attorney. He threatened to...

RENO, Nevada (AP) -- She spelled it right. The judge said it was wrong. And she's not getting a second chance. Reno, Nevada, eighth-grader Sara Beckman spelled "discernible" correctly during a spelling bee Tuesday at the University of Nevada, Reno. But the judge rang the bell anyway.... Her mother, Cindy, calls herself a "momma bear with her bear claws out" and is ready to go to court. The school spokesman says he hopes everybody can sit down together and work something out. He says defending a lawsuit over a spelling bee isn't a good way to spend school district money.