Spelling Bee fires up as final week of the school round gets started

Competition in the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee is rapidly hotting up as the school round enters its final week. Over 50,000 students have already been registered, but with this year’s Bee remaining open until the final bell on Friday, it is expected that more kids will join the hive in the coming days.

Reigning* Years 7-8 (Red level) champion Zachary Cheng won in 2022 as a Year 7 student, so he is eligible* to have a crack at defending* his title this year.

Zac’s number one tip to other students was to read more books.

“You get a lot of good vocabulary* just by reading a lot,” he said. “I just read a lot every day … and I just learnt a lot naturally.”

While Zac did some extra preparation using dictionaries and activity sheets before last year’s national final, he said he does not believe kids really needed to do anything extra if they were already doing a good amount of reading.

“It is mostly reading and learning it naturally,” he said. “My favourite books are probably Harry Potter. They have a lot of new vocabulary; to me, they’re just really interesting books to read.”

Although he was feeling “a bit nervous” about defending his title, Zac was keen to meet the Prime Minister again.

“I’ll be the first back-to-back winner if I do it right,” he said. “Most of my friends want to do it now as well this time just to try to beat me.”

Zac’s other tip was getting to know the format before sitting the school round, noting that the Bee was about speed as well as accuracy.

“You can’t go back to the word after you press ‘next’ (and) if you get the same score (as another student), whoever is faster wins,” Zac said.

“With one of (the rounds) it came down to a couple of seconds. We got the same score, me and someone else, but it came down to 10 seconds, so typing plays a big part of it.”

While winning the trip to Canberra to meet the Prime Minister was certainly a highlight, Zac said it was also fun meeting the other winners and visiting the National Portrait Gallery.

“If you want to do it and you want to meet the Prime Minister, you should just give it a go,” he said. “You really have nothing to lose and it’s a really fun experience as well.

“Good luck to everyone.”

Joanne Lee won the Years 3-4 (Green level) and closely echoed Zac’s advice.

“They can just read every day – that’s pretty much all I did,” she said. “Just any books from the library.

“I like Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan. I also like Friday Barnes by R. A. Spratt. (Series) are just fun because it’s long and it takes more time to read it and the storyline just keeps going.”

Now in Year 5, Joanne is competing at a higher reading level this year and said that advancing from Green to Orange was “kind of scary”.

“I feel like there’s going to be a lot of hard words in this year’s spelling list,” she said. “I’m a little bit nervous because I feel like there’s going to be a lot of people out there who are much better at spelling than I am.”

But keeping her eye on that grand prize was good motivation.

“It was fun going to Canberra and meeting the Prime Minister – we did a lot of different things that were good,” she said.

Joanne’s fellow Perth-based champion Ozi Egesi claimed the Years 5-6 Orange level title and recommended “storing a vocabulary of words” first by reading them, then by finding out their meaning.

“You should always practise at least 20 words daily, and make sure you can memorise the British and American spellings so you don’t confuse them on the competition day,” Ozi said.

“It would be best to also learn the spelling for frequently misspelt words and tricky words, such as ‘leukocyte’* and ‘fuchsia’*.

“It would help to memorise words from other cultures, since Australia is a multicultural nation, such as ‘pariah’* and ‘apartheid’*.”

Ozi said that while he already has one national champion title under his belt, he would “not take it for granted”.

“Nor will I go with a complacent* attitude but with determination,” he said. “I have been practising with the same motivation as last year – and I intend to defend my title for the next four years.”

The Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee school round is live now until 5pm AEST this Friday 18 August – teachers can register students right up until the final day at spelling-bee.com.au

POLL

GLOSSARY

• reigning: being the most recent winner of a competition
• eligible: having the necessary qualities or satisfying the necessary condition
• defending: trying to win a game or competition that you won last time it was played
• vocabulary: all the words known and used by a particular person
• leukocyte: any of the colourless (white) blood cells of the immune system that protect you against illness and disease
• fuchsia: small garden plant that has red, purple or white flowers
• pariah: an outcast, any person or animals rejected or avoided or disliked
• apartheid: a political system in South Africa in which people were divided into racial groups and kept apart by law
• complacent: self-satisfied, pleased with oneself, overly content or smug

EXTRA READING

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Jess Mauboy and Mitch Tambo sing the same tune

Why emojis are so dead right now

QUICK QUIZ

1. What is defending Red level champion Zac Cheng’s number one tip for the Bee?
2. What famous book series does Zac count among his favourites?
3. Which category is last year’s Green level winner Joanne Lee competing in this year?
4. Why does Orange level champion Ozi Egesi recommend learning words from other cultures?
5. Which of the three 2022 national champions are competing in the Bee this year?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Readers versus non-readers
The Prime-Minister’s Spelling Bee is happening now in schools. The 2022 reigning champions' main tips for being a good speller is just to read!

Apart from reading being enjoyable and transporting you to another place, it seems it is also useful to become a great speller.

Work with a partner and list some of the skills that an avid reader (a person who reads a lot for enjoyment) gains, compared to someone that doesn’t read very much.

Write the skills below:

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Is this enough to convince you to read more if you don’t already love it?

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
How would you help friends or other students in your school learn to love reading more?

Some students just love it, others find it tedious and boring.

Write your three top tips to get kids reading more for enjoyment, and therefore gaining many more skills as a result.

1.

2.

3.

Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Read this!
A headline on an article – or a title on your text – should capture the attention of the audience, telling them to read this now. So choosing the perfect words for a headline or title is very important.

Create three new headlines for the events that took place in this article. Remember, what you write and how you write it will set the pace for the whole text, so make sure it matches.

Read out your headlines to a partner and discuss what the article will be about based on the headline you created. Discuss the tone and mood you set in just your few, short words. Does it do the article justice? Will it capture the audience’s attention the way you hoped? Would you want to read more?

Consider how a headline or title is similar to using short, sharp sentences throughout your text. They can be just as important as complex ones. Go through the last text you wrote and highlight any short, sharp sentences that capture the audience.