Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee abuzz after NAPLAN results land

Last week’s NAPLAN results were a bag of licorice allsorts – all kids are different – but for the second straight year, the published reports coincided with the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee’s busiest day of traffic since registrations and the school round opened. Entering the third week of the registration period, the Bee had sailed past 45,000 students nationwide.

With nearly three weeks still remaining to register students across Years 3-8 to take part in Kids News’ free, fun and fast online spelling challenge, Grattan Institute education program deputy director Amy Haywood said the simple digital format for classrooms – with each student separately playing against the clock on their computer or tablet – “lowers the barrier to entry”.

“It’s great to have an activity that focuses on spelling that’s kind of ‘gamified*’,” Ms Haywood said. “It’s individualised, you’re on your own computer, it’s not so embarrassing to get something wrong.

“It means that all students can take part and have a go and we do want all students to be practising their spelling.”

Writing in the Wentworth Courier on July 30, reigning Red level (Years 7-8) national champion Aditya Paul likened the Bee to a game of “bullet chess”.

“It is fast, relatively painless, and an easy way to boost your English skills,” Aditya said.

Boosting those basic skills across the board is what the Bee is all about.

Ms Haywood said the reason spelling was so important is that it’s the foundation for writing.

“Writing is really a thinking process, and we want our students to be able to think critically, to be able to communicate, to be able to articulate* themselves,” she said. “We want them to be able to spell really well so their cognitive* effort is not spent on, ‘Hang on, which “there” is this, is it the “eir” or is it the one with the contraction*. We want to make that automatic so they can really expend their cognitive effort on writing.”

As for anyone thinking AI will take care of all the spelling and writing for you, think again.

“It’s still fundamental even in the age of AI,” Ms Haywood said. “AI makes mistakes – it’s important you have the capacity to correct those mistakes.

“We want to have the capacity to use our own judgement … (and create) something that is our own. Spelling is a really key part of that because word choice is so important for being able to express ourselves well.”

A former English teacher, Ms Haywood suggested that out of class, “definitely reading is a huge one” for kids wanting to spruce their spelling skills. It was no surprise, she said, that all the Bee’s national champions have been very keen readers.

“Avid* readers are often also very good spellers because it means they’re coming across words that you just will not find in your everyday conversation,” she said. “Literature is just much more technical and the number of words that you’re being exposed to is much higher.

“Spelling (is) such a gateway … because being able to read is so fundamental for every other subject (you’ll) do in school, for so many work environments, and particularly those growing jobs of the future as well,” Ms Haywood said.

“It is really important to get those foundationals right and then it opens all these doors to all these other subjects … that students can really dive into, particularly as they go into secondary school.

“One of the NAPLAN testing areas is spelling. I think it makes sense that (teachers might) think potentially being part of the PM’s Spelling Bee could be a great addition to the curriculum that we’re already teaching, because it could be a fun and engaging way for students to show their stuff.”

POLL

GLOSSARY

• gamified: making an activity more like a game so it becomes more interesting or fun
• articulate: able to express thoughts and feelings easily and clearly
• cognitive: relating to or involving the mental processes of thinking and reasoning
• avid: extremely eager, keen or interested

EXTRA READING

Spelling skills rev kids’ engines

Albo celebrates Bee’s big birthday

Where are our Bee champs now?

QUICK QUIZ

1. How many students have been registered in the PM’s Spelling Bee so far?
2. The Bee site’s busiest day of traffic coincided with the release of what reports?
3. What does reigning Red level (Years 7-8) national champion Aditya Paul liken the format to?
4. Why does Amy Haywood think spelling skills remain essential in the AI age?
5. Why does Ms Haywood say that avid readers are often good spellers?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Homophones
The news story refers to the challenge of knowing which word to use out of there, their and they’re. Words like this that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings are called homophones.

Make a list of at least 10 sets of homophones with a short definition to show that you know their meanings.

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English

Extension
Choose three of your homophone sets and create a rhyme, mnemonic or visual representation that can help you distinguish between them so that you always choose the correct spelling.

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English

VCOP ACTIVITY
Read with Kung Fu punctuation
Pair up with the article between you and stand up to make it easy to demonstrate your Kung Fu punctuation.

Practise reading one sentence at a time. Now read it again, while acting out the punctuation as you read.

Read and act three sentences before swapping with your partner.

Take two turns each.

Now ask your partner to read a sentence out loud while you try and act out the punctuation. Can you keep up? Swap over?

Try acting out two sentences – are you laughing yet?