Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion So is everyone watching the National Spelling Bee?

Streaming live on ESPN 2! I love watching all these gifted kids on TV. Many definitely have some quirks, too. They're adorable. I noticed one kid's bio mentioned Davidson. There was also a 6yo competitor this year! (She's been eliminated.)

We like to play along at home. I usually beat my husband, but just barely. There's also an online quiz.

DW and FIL did. They were talking about this last night - especially the 6 year old.

Mr W was listening to them. He wanted to know what a spelling bee was...

Very sad that the bee was only on ESPN2 this year, and we don't have cable. D age 22 is very upset, she watches every year and couldn't watch this year. This is the first year the finals have not been on network TV in several years.

We watched every moment of the finals, grateful we have cable with ESPN. You can probably find all the preliminaries, semi-finals and finals on espn3.com (I think it re-directs to a new url, but that's how we found it). My DS was a speller at Scripps last year and it was so bittersweet to watch with him this year from home. He still has two more years of eligibility remaining though and has vowed to return. :-)

It was streaming live on the net--sorry this info is too late for you, but for future reference. The other cool thing about that is that they have the "play along" version available online where they do not show the word.

Didn't get to watch, but thanks for the info. DS6 is excited to study for the bee, but I am trying to decide whether it's worth it or not. Despite some early claims from his teachers that he had a photographic memory, I think they were overselling it a bit, and it seems like a big time commitment to be in it to win. On the other hand, he'd develop his vocabulary pretty extensively and probably have fun.

On one hand I'm happy that gifted kids get this national stage to celebrate their accomplishments, but on the other hand, this is another example of how terrible ESPN is, because while they're showing this the network is completely oblivious that a Stanley Cup Final is underway. I think they need to review what their "S" stands for, because I'm pretty sure it's not "spelling."

Go Kings.

/rant

It was ESPN3, I think, Dude, so not their main attraction or whatever. I find it amusing that it's on ESPN.

Iucounu, I did the bee circuit as a child. You can go pretty far on innate ability locally. To do well at the NSB, though, you do have to study your tail off. However, depending on where you live, it may not be that difficult to GET to the bee...as you can see if you watch the bee, many qualifiers are not prepared for the national level and quickly drop out. Which, IMO, is not so terrible. Depending on you and your child, you could view it as a fun opportunity to go to DC and not worry about actually winning.

My DD is a very good speller, but perhaps not as good as I was. I don't know if she has what it takes to do bees, but possibly. I sort of wish I could see some of my writing from when I was her age. She never gets anything wrong on her spelling tests, but in her free writing, she does make some errors.

I won my school spelling bee and got to the regional spelling bee twice, because I had a good vocabulary. In the list of words to study for the regional bee, the words I did not know how to spell were pretty obscure. If my children take a strong interest in spelling I will support them, but I think other academic competitions develop more transferable skills.

True; the skills are not very transferable, although I have to assume studying all those words helps on the verbal SAT eventually and might help you write better papers, too. But the kids who do well in bees would probably do well with those skills anyway. The general discipline required to do well is transferable, of course.

I won a bunch of reference books, including the full Encyclopedia Britannica. I wonder what they win nowadays?? Ipads, probably.