How Winning the National Spelling Bee Prepared Me for High School (Opinion) Education Week
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Eachyear,around11millionspellersparticipateintheNationalSpellingBeecircuit.Toreachthenationalstage,onemustwintheirclass,school,district,andregionalbees.Afterwinningmyregionalbee,Ifocusedonthehomestretch—Istudiedthousandsofroots,hundredsofthousandsofwords,countlessvocabularylists,andetymologicalpatternsoflanguagesfromeverycorneroftheworld.
IhadlostdozensofbeessinceIstartedcompetinginthe2ndgrade.ThefirstwordIstumbledoverwas“Wednesday,”butcheringitas“W-E-N-S-D-A-Y.”In2021,Iwaseliminatedinthethirdroundoutof20,andin2022,Ididn’tevenqualify.Thefinalyearofeligibilitywasthe8thgrade,soIhadonlyonechanceleftin2023.
Studyingforthebeewasoverwhelmingattimes.Realizingthisin6thgrade,IstreamlinedtheprocessbytrackingmyprogresswithaGoogleSheet.Irecordedthenumberofwordsstudied,roots,andthepagesIreachedinvariousvocabularyandetymologytextbooks.Withalmost500,000wordsinthedictionary,Icatalogedmyweakspotsintodoze
