He will turn 10 in May.
I have the Spell It spelling bee booklet that the older kids used last year and I saw some of the same words that were in the booklet for the younger kids, but there were harder words also. My son looked at it and he didn't think he would have a problem learning them. The thing is, they can take words from the dictionary that are not in the booklet if they need to do this in order to come up with a winner. The kids who read a lot, which is probably all of the kids that make it to the state bee, and have a very good visual memory would probably have a better chance at winning the spelling bee.
I don't think I could spell anything correctly if I had to do it in front of a lot of people. One poor girl, during a practice round at the state bee spelled the word "down" d-o-n-e, but it didn't count and she went on to do several rounds. It had to have been because of stage fright or something. She was obviously embarrassed by her mistake, but she pulled herself together when they told her it didn't count and she was still in the competition.
I will have to find a way to let my son practice spelling words in front of groups of people if he makes it that far next year. I was very surprised that he won the regional written test which was written, considering that he has some handwriting difficulties.
