FOR the first time in its long history, the US National Spelling Bee was broadcast in prime time on ABC on June 1st. After popular movies like "Spellbound" "Bee Season" and "Akeelah and the Bee", this is just another indication that spelling bees are "hot".
The US National Spelling Bee was launched by the Courier-Journal based in Louisville, US in 1925. The Scripps Howard News Service in the US took over the Bee in 1941. The purpose of the event is to help students improve their spelling, increase their vocabularies, learn concepts, and develop correct English usage. The word "bee" has long been used to describe a busy gathering of people who come together for a special purpose.
The popularity of spelling bees is in stark contrast to both public opinion and public education, as both frequently portray spelling education as old-fashioned and unnecessary.
"I had several school administrators tell me that spelling education was outdated, because students were using Microsoft Word for their writing assignments," says Rosevita Warda, founder and president of an innovative non-profit website dedicated to spelling and vocabulary tutoring, www.eSpindle.org.
When education policy abandoned rote, authoritarian teaching styles, memory based learning tasks (like learning how to spell) were rejected as rigid and unnecessary. The current emphasis on creative learning has created the impression that simple memory tasks, like spelling, are no longer important.
But some researchers disagree. "Reading and writing are interactive and complementary processes; in the real world, they function together. Both readers and writers must know word meanings and spelling," writes Karen Bromley, a professor at Binghamton University, US, in her book "Stretching Students' Vocabulary".
Solid spelling knowledge is used as an indicator of a superior education and intelligence, while those without such skills are stigmatized. However, literacy skills have been continuously declining, and the literacy gap in the US is widening.
According to the New York Times, only about half of last year's high school graduates have the reading skills they need to succeed in college. "Literacy can be thought of as a currency in our society," states the US National Assessment of Adult Literacy.
Some people in the US believe that spelling word lists are boring, ineffective, time-intensive, painstaking and burdensome. "This by itself does not mean that memorizing words and their spelling convention through practice can be abandoned," says Warda, "It simply means that we need to advance to a smarter, more focused way of getting the necessary results."
