Spelling bee protesters: “Enuf is enuf!”

EDITOR NOTE: 

Kind of a funny article -protestors want to make spelling easier so people who can’t spell can fill out job applications.  If you get a job application with the “new spelling” all over it, are you really going to even consider hiring that person?  Are they going to mandate that people who can’t spell must be hired anyway?

 It is probably a good sign that they only managed to get seven protestors to attend.

Spelling bee protesters: “Enuf is enuf!”

By Carl Weiser, Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON — Protesters delivered a message Wednesday to the national spelling bee: Enuf is enuf!
Seven members of the American Literacy Society picketed the 77th annual spelling bee, which is sponsored every year by Cincinnati-based Scripps Howard.

The protesters’ complaint: English spelling is illogical. And the national spelling bee only reinforces the crazy spellings that lead to dyslexia, high illiteracy, and harder lives for immigrants.

“We advocate the modernization of English spelling,” said Pete Boardman, 58, of Groton, N.Y. The Cornell University bus driver admitted to being a terrible speller.

Protester Elizabeth Kuizenga, 56, is such a good speller she teaches English as a second language in San Francisco. She said she got involved in the protest after seeing how much time was wasted teaching spelling in her class.

Bee spokesman Mark Kroeger said good spelling comes from knowing the story behind a word — what language it comes from, what it means.

“For these kids who understand the root words, who understand the etymology, it’s totally logical,” he said.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-06-02-spelling-protest_x.htm

And here are some accounts of protests in the years 2005 and 2006.

http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media2/spbee05.php

http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media2006/spellingbee2006.php

Spelling Bee – Arizona Spelling Bee

WHAT IS IT?

Source:  http://www.azedfoundation.org/asb-about.html
The Spelling Bee is an event that challenges children K-8 to utilize their spelling and phonetic skills in a competitive environment. The top 27 spellers in the state compete in the State Spelling Bee to determine who will represent Arizona in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. The winner and an escort receive an all-expenses paid trip to Washington, D.C. to compete with spellers from all over the nation.

To compete in the Arizona Spelling Bee, finalists must win a series of competitions at local, district and regional or county levels. These top spellers compete in the State Spelling Bee to determine who represents Arizona in the National Spelling Bee. Scripps sponsors the National Spelling Bee.

 The 2007 Arizona Spelling Bee will air on KAET-Channel 8 as follows: April 18, 2007 at 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m.; April 23 at 4:30 a.m. and April 29 at 2:00 p.m.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
To become one of the 27 finalists in the Arizona State Spelling Bee, students must win their school spelling bee. They then must win their district bees. Finally, each county holds a bee to determine who competes as a finalist in the state bee. Due to the size of Maricopa County, six regional bees take place. The winner and runner-up from each of the six regional competitions become finalists in the state bee. Pima County sends two contestants to the state bee.

WHO MAKES THIS POSSIBLE?
U.S. AIRWAYS is the Presenting Sponsor of the Arizona State Spelling Bee.

Additional support provided by:

First National Bank of Arizona
KAET-Channel 8
Safeway

Arizona Spelling Bee 2007

Arizona Spelling Bee 2007

Wednesday, Apr. 18 at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Sunday, Apr. 29 at 2 p.m.
Eight/KAET-TV hosts the Arizona Educational Foundation’s Spelling Bee finals in the Eight studios on the campus of Arizona State University. Scheduled for taping on Saturday, Mar. 31, 2007, the bee will bring together the state’s best spellers in grades four through eight to determine who will represent Arizona in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. The winner and an escort receive an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C. to compete with spellers from all over the nation.

More:  Arizona Spelling Bee

Homophones

Several posts on the topic of Homophones

Word-Making Activities for the Primary Grades

Rebecca Sitton Spelling and Word Skills Newsletter

Word-Making Activities for the Primary Grades

It’s true—when students routinely engage in word making and word analysis, the result is measurable

growth in essential language skills.

Here are activities of various difficulties to enrich your word work. Begin by writing each letter of

Thanksgiving on large autumn-colored letter cards and place them in a pocket chart or chalk tray to

spell Thanksgiving.Mix the letters. Students take turns respelling

Thanksgiving. If necessary, provide a model word

for students in order to reposition the letters.

Randomly distribute the letters of Thanksgiving among students. Ask them to work as a team

to respell Thanksgiving.Ask students to find small words inside

Thanksgiving (thank, thanks, than, in, an, giving).

Then they write sentences using the little words. Repeat the activity with current words from

across the curriculum (mathematics: mat, math, at, the, he, them, I).

Use the letters in Thanksgiving to spell small words (e.g., sting, thin, hats, kings, skin, giant,

asking, knight, visit, saving, having, ninth, sink, taking, thing). List students’ words on a

chart. Later, conceal the words for students to recall and write. Next, reveal the words for

self-checking.

Discuss Thanksgiving as a compound word. Post a chart, Compound Words We Know. Beside

it, place colorful sticky notes. Then students begin a compound Word Find. They write each

compound they discover on a sticky note and stick it to the chart. Later, you write the words on

the chart with a marker. Small groups can take turns reading the compounds. Play a deletion

activity with the compound words—for example, say Thanksgiving without giving. Later, cut

the chart to form two words from each compound. Place the words in a basket in your literacy

center for students to pair to make compound words.

Underline Thanks in Thanksgiving. Have students write a thank-you note to a friend. After

pairing for proofreading, students deliver their note.

 

Rebecca Sitton’s SOURCEBOOK Series for Teaching Spelling and Word Skills for Grades 1–8

Published by Egger Publishing, Inc. • Call us toll free 888-WE-SPELL •

Rebecca Sitton SOURCEBOOK Series – Ask Rebecca

 

Ask Rebecca

 

Rebecca,

I went to your seminar in Wisconsin

with two staff members in February

and wish more of my district teachers

could have attended. I looked at your

website for another seminar in our

location, and there are none. Can you

come to our school district for

a seminar?

Ellen Windsong

Language Arts Coordinator

 

Dear Ellen,

We do seminars, such as the one you attended, that are open

to educators from the area, and we do seminars just for schools

and school districts. Sometimes these schools or districts open

their seminars to other educators.

To schedule a seminar, call our office toll free at 888-937-7355.

Ask for information about scheduling a seminar. We’ll help

you. Discuss possible dates and expenses.

There are three other veteran presenters besides me who conduct

the Sourcebook Seminars for Teaching Spelling and Word

Skills. Each of us lives in a different U.S. city. We all provide

Sourcebook training, but we do it our own way. However, we

all use the same format and seminar handbook to be certain the outcome is the same.

The seminar is usually the same length as the one you attended—from about 8:30 in the morning until about

3:15 in the afternoon, with approximately an hour for lunch. Yet, some districts choose a different time

arrangement, such as meeting from 8:00 am until 1:45 pm with no lunch break. The total seminar length is

the same. On occasion, the seminar for all teachers is just one-half day, and the rest of the presenter’s day is

spent training a handful of “spelling mentors” who then train your other teachers using the Tutor Me Training

CD-ROM program.

In some cases, the seminar can offer “credit” for attendance. This depends upon the amount of class time, participating

credit source (such as a university), and the kind of credit that is desired.

There is nothing more effective for learning how to use the Sourcebook than to participate in a basic training

seminar. For veteran Sourcebook users, there is an extension seminar which has been immensely popular!

There’s even a seminar we do for parents!

Do you have a question? Call me at home or toll free at the office, send me an e-mail, or set up a complimentary

conference call for a group of colleagues who have questions. • e-mail: rsitton @ sittonspelling.com

• home phone: 480-473-7277 • office phone: toll free at 888-WE-SPELL (937-7355) or 480-596-5100

 

Rebecca Sitton’s SOURCEBOOK Series for Teaching Spelling and Word Skills for Grades 1–8

Published by Egger Publishing, Inc. • Call us toll free at 888-WE-SPELL •

Learning Resources for Students, Teachers and Parents

Hurley Public School Taps IBM Search Software to Unleash Learning Resources for Students, Teachers and Parents

Apr 16, 2007 — Hurley Public School in South Dakota today announced that it has selected IBM (NYSE:IBM – News) search software to help students, parents and the local community find and access educational information, homework assignments, board meeting minutes, or even conduct library searches from among the school’s 30 Web sites and online resources.

Hurley Public School tapped the free IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition enterprise search software to power a new search environment that helps users precisely target and gather information that can be used to improve student education, increase parent involvement, and facilitate community awareness of the school’s activities.

With numerous administration, staff and student Web sites, as well as information in different formats available online — from student handbooks to school board meeting agendas — Hurley Public School needed a tool to make it easy to index and search all of this information.

“Advancing our school’s technology is a priority for us as we provide new ways to access learning and keep parents and our community involved in education,” said Shane Voss, superintendent, Hurley Public School. “As a very small school in South Dakota, we try to make every budget dollar count. IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition enabled us to get up and running with advanced enterprise and site search, and best of all, it was free.”

The school also delivers a customized environment for Web search based on whether a user is a staff member or a student. This enables the school to provide important links such as to Yahoo!, calendaring or even specialized educational resources appropriate to the user. IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition also gives educators a powerful tool to ensure that students easily find the most relevant information for their studies. By using its search statistics, site administrators can see what users are looking for and tune the IBM search software in response. For example, if high school students are studying fusion in their physics class, the IBM search software can be tuned to ensure the most content-rich and relevant sites about this topic are delivered.

Hurley Public School relies heavily on open source software and was previously using an open source indexing system that didn’t deliver the performance and insight required.

“In all we do, we are trying to help people think and find the information they need, as well as provide the best and most accurate results possible,” said Voss. “We want to make every technology tool that we can bring together available to students and staff, whether they are outside the building or inside. Our customized user interface, enabling advanced search and even library search through IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition, helps us accomplish this goal.”

IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition is available at no charge and can be downloaded at http://omnifind.ibm.yahoo.com. Worldwide, enterprise-class phone support is available from IBM.

For more information on IBM Content Discovery Solutions, visit http://www.ibm.com/software/data/enterprise-search/.

IBM and the IBM e-business logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.

For a list of additional IBM trademarks, please see http://www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.

Rebecca Sitton High Frequency Words

Rebecca Sitton High Frequency Words 

These are the Rebecca Sitton High Frequency Words 1 – 100

First Graders are expected to learn words 1-35 by the end of the school year.  

By the end of second grade, students should know words 1-100.

Parents can give their pre-schooler a headstart by teaching the spelling of these words prior to first grade.

Rebecca Sitton High Frequency Words

1. the	2. of	3. and	4. a
5. to	6. in	7. is	8. you
9. that	10. it	11. he	12. for
13. was	14. on	15. are	16. as
17. with	18. his	19. they	20. at
21. be	22. this	23. from	24. I
25. have	26. or	27. by	28. one
29. had	30. not	31. but	32. what
33. all	34. were	35. when	36. we
37. there	38. can	39. an	40. your
41. which	42. their	43. said	44. if
45. do	46. will	47. each	48. about
49. how	50. up	51. out	52. them
53. then	54. she	55. many	56. some
57. so	59. these	59. would	60. other
61. into	62. has	63. more	64. her
65. two	66. like	67. him	68. see
69. time	70. could	71. no	72. make
73. than	74. first	75. been	76. its
77. who	78. now	79. people	80. my
81. made	82. over	83. did	84. down
85. only	86. way	87. find	88. use
89. may	90. water	91. long	92. little
93. very	94. after	95. words	96. called
97. just	98. where	99. most	100. know

Rebecca Sitton High Frequency Words List

Top 500 most frequently used words.

Rebecca Sitton High Frequency Words List

Rebecca Sitton

Rebecca Sitton article in Phoenix Business Journal.