Spelling Bee Final Spotlights Skills, But We Still Have a Lot to Learn

The 94th Scripps National Spelling Bee took the U.S. by storm, with the San Antonio-born winner, Harini Logan, spelling a staggering 22 words correctly in only 90 seconds.

This year’s competition took place at National Harbour, Maryland. The televised event asked the contestants to spell a broad range of words with varying difficulty levels. The contestants took part in the first-ever “spell-off” before Harini Logan, 14, emerged as the champion.

“Scyllarian,” “connaraceous,” and “pyrrolidone” were just some of the rare words that made headlines at the event, and the spellers wowed the judges and the audience with their showstopping abilities.

Despite the exceptional display of young talent partaking in the Spelling Bee, we know that there are many Americans still struggling to properly spell “every,” “which,” and “their.” Avery or every? Which, witch or wich? Their, there, or they’re? You get the idea.

Google Trends recently analyzed the “how do you spell” trending phrase by U.S. states in 2022 and found the top terms that each state struggled with spelling.

Here are the most common misspelled terms in the U.S. in 2022, from shortest to longest:

1. Gray (x2)
2. Lose
3. Choir
4. Sorry
5. Again
6. Prank
7. Little
8. Their
9. Tokyo
10. Kauai
11. Cousin
12. Choice
13. Months
14. Normal
15. Tomato
16. Cheese
17. Autumn
18. Awesome
19. Awkward
20. Seizure
21. Bologna
22. Dessert
23. Therapy
24. College
25. Picture
26. Actively
27. Princess
28. Business
29. Exercise
30. Separate
31. Bearable
32. Daughter
33. Thousand
34. Schedule
35. Listening
36. Beautiful (x2)
37. Impatience
38. Pneumonia
39. Scientist
40. Paparazzi
41. Experience
42. Federation
43. Beautifully
44. Boutonniere
45. Independent
46. Anniversary
47. Multiplication
48. Reimbursement
49. West Virginia

While the National Spelling Bee improves the self-esteem of the spellers themselves, it apparently does little for the rest of us. So what makes them such great spellers?

Spelling Misconceptions

Spelling is not about “looking.” Many avid readers say they can’t spell. Even Michael Morpurgo has admitted that his young grandson is a better speller than him.

Spelling is not about “hearing.” While some words can be spelled by ear, many words we learn as children cannot be sounded out. Take, for example, words like “laugh,” “friend,” and “enough.”

Learn To Spell Tips

Here are some tips we can learn from the Spelling Bee.

Understand The Meaning Of The Word

National Spelling Bee contestants often figure out intricate spellings by hearing the word in a sentence and the definition.

Learning a long string of letters is painful if we don’t understand the word itself. If there is no meaning and analysis of how the word is constructed, then we might as well try to remember Google suggested passwords instead.

When we hear the meaning of the word, we may be able to break up the meaningful part of the words. For example, to spell “talked,” there are two morphemes- “talk” and “ed.” We know to form the past tense, we need “ed.”

When we hear an example sentence with the word, we can learn what kind of word it is and how it functions.

Understanding The Origin Of The Word

English words aren’t always spelled the way they sound. Our Americanized idiom has a deep history of words and spellings originating from languages such as Latin and Greek.

Finding out the word’s origin can help the contestants decide which letters are more likely to represent the sounds they hear.

For example, the letter ‘x’ in Latin is often pronounced as ‘gz,’ as in “exuberant.” In Greek, the short ‘i’ sound is often spelled with a ‘y,’ as in “cryptic.”

Words are like pieces of code that we can figure out. When you figure out one word, it can help you solve another.

Hard Work And Practice

The National Spelling Bee is highly competitive, and it is not just about remembering a random list of words to get a coveted spot in the final.

Tenacious students studied and worked tirelessly before the competition. With thousands of potential words, there is no way for the students to memorize all the potential terms and spellings. Instead, they rely on their abilities and knowledge of spelling rules, word formation, and etymology (the origin of words).

The Bottom Line

Good spelling is useful, even if we never need to spell “moorhen” like Harini Logan. While a good speller is desirable, a poor speller is not a failure. There is an opportunity to grow in this area by truly understanding words and their significant parts.

And if we still don’t know what we are doing, Google Trends will be sure to let us know in next year’s most common misspelled words.

More Articles From The Wealth of Geeks Network:

This post was produced by TPR Teaching and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.

Featured Image Credit: Alex Brandon, Associated Press