By now, you’ve probably seen the video of the poor kid who comes up against the word sardoodledum. First he breaks out laughing then he desperately tries to drill the asker for more information. Eventually, he manages to work his way towards the correct answer. So how do you succeed in a spelling be?
Prepare: There’s no substitute for hard work and preparation when it comes to spelling bees. The more time you spend studying, the better you’ll do. Try to set yourself a timetable of what preparation you’ll be doing when. For example, say you’ll revise the words sardoodledum to satellite on Thursday evening.
Check Pronunciation: Make sure you know how to pronounce each word you learn. Imagine if sardoodledum came up and you thought it was pronounced different. You wouldn’t recognise the word and would spell it wrong.
Pronounce words wrongly: Going against the last advice. Sometimes the way a word is pronounced is misleading. For example, for the word beautiful you could pronounce it bee-a-u-tiful in your head.
Learn about transliteration and assimilation: Get familiar with how words adapt when they move from one language to another. For example, sardoodledum is from French. How has the word been changed to make it fit English speakers better?
Read all the time: There’s nothing better for increasing your vocabulary and improving your spelling than reading. Once you’ve come across a word, it’s much easier to remember than it is to work out how it is spelled from the root and pronounciation. No doubt the boy in the clip had so much trouble because he had never before heard the word ’sardoodledum’.
Follow these tips and work hard and there’ll be no stopping when it comes to the next spelling bee. So now can you spell sardoodledum?
