Spelling Bee Exercises
David Montoya graduated from University of California, Los Angeles School of Law and holds a Master of Arts in American Indian studies. His writings, covering a range of topics including law and travels, have appeared on various websites. Montoya passed the February 2011 California State Bar Examination.
By David Montoya, eHow Contributor
Spelling bee exercises can be tailored to build specific skills necessary for competition.
Spelling bees are one of the most popular academic competitions in America and around the world. The fierce competition and the complicated words that seem impossible to spell create an atmosphere almost similar to that of a sporting event. To participate in a spelling bee, whether at the national level or in a classroom competition, you need to practice to build your spelling skills. One of the best ways to practice is with spelling exercises.
Finding the Correct Spelling
Finding the Correct Spelling is an exercise that helps you visualize words and some of the trickiest spellings around. The setup for this exercise is simple. Create a list of some of the hardest words to spell on a sheet of paper (around 20 words should suffice for this game). Each word should have at least three spellings of each word. Two of the spellings will be incorrect, and one of the spellings will be the correct choice. Circle the correct spelling. An additional step you can add to this game is creating subjects for the lists. For example, you can create a list of 10 of the hardest mammals to spell or the hardest foods to spell. This helps shed light on some particular spelling patterns that appear with certain types of words.
Story Spelling
Story Spelling is an exercise that helps you understand the context of a word, an important element of understanding the root of a word and how it may be spelled. You'll need someone to read a story (you can make one up or read any available story with hard-to-spell words) and read it paragraph by paragraph. At the end of each paragraph, the reader will ask you about the most complicated word and how to spell it. You need to take into consideration the context of the word and how it was used in order to determine the correct spelling. You can also ask the reader to repeat the sentence the word was used in if you can't remember the context. Spell out the word verbally, and the reader will tell you if you're correct.
Spelling and Definitions
Spelling and Definitions is an exercise that only requires the use of a dictionary. Have someone come up with a list of complicated words to spell. This list should be not be revealed to you. The reader will find each word in the dictionary and read out the definition. It is up to you to determine the word and to spell it correctly. This is one of the hardest exercises you can do since you'll be required to do two things: determine the correct word and spell that word correctly. This exercise not only helps build spelling skills but also critical thinking in regards to how words might be spelled based on definition and possible usage.
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