145 Days Until the National Spelling Bee!!!!!!!!!!!/Root Word Study

Guess what? There are only 145 days until the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee (May 27-June 2, 2012) at the Gaylord National Hotel! Many classroom, school, and local level bees have already been conducted, and every speller who wins their final local bee (has to win on or after February 1) will be able to compete at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

My sister has not had her classroom bee yet, but my friend, who also goes to her school, has. She has been studying, and she is very excited to compete this year! I have been coaching both of them and several other young aspiring spellers, and all of them are outstanding at spelling.

In my Honors English Class we just finished reading The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare. There were many words from the play that I recognized, but there were also some I did not know. 

pribbles

prabbles

sirrah

fico

avaunt

usquebaugh

lascivious

vouchsafe (1973 National Spelling Bee Winning Word)

frampold

larum

polecats

declensions

varlet

daubery

wantonness

Just yesterday in English, we started learning Greek and Latin roots. When we played a game we could figure out the meanings of the words by breaking them down into roots. In my Honors Biology class we were studying roots of words so we can figure out the meanings of the obscure science terms. Since we were studying sugars and enzymes, we learned that if a word has glyc- or gluc- it has to do with sugar (such as glycolysis, glucose) , and if a word ends with -ase (such as lactase) it usually has to do with enzymes (thanks to root word study for the spelling bee that I know these). Diligent root word study will help you immensely 

On the weekends (if I have time) I will be posting more tips for the Bees. 

Good luck and continue spelling!