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Media ReleasesWar of the words winner
Give Us A Bee!
..... Les Posen, who, along with schoolteacher Lili Hampel, runs Victoria's Spellmasters Australia, is delighted that spelling is back on the agenda. "The importance of spelling waxes and wanes in education over the years but, at the moment, we are swinging back to a focus. I think it's because people are actually writing more. Even when people wrote letters, they might write one and then it would take six weeks to arrive. These days the amount of emails and text messages flying back and forth each day is immense. Often, email is the first contact you can have with someone, even an employer. And let's face it, spellcheck doesn't solve everything; it certainly doesn't pick up homonyms such as 'their' and 'there'." ..... Caroline spells winner
It was agonising Lawrence Money YOU could have cut the air with a knife when Jake Malouf, of Gippsland Grammar, reached the final hurdle in Spellmasters' state spelling comps in Glen Iris last weekend. Having finished one clear of the pack, Jake had to spell one more word which, observed pronouncer Les Posen, was rather appropriate under the circumstances: "excruciating". The answer was excruciating too: Jake got it wrong. But he went on to a spiflicating win in the rematch. Spelling her way to success Queen of the spelling bee: Buk at Mooroolbark's Pembroke Primary.
Beth Rivkah student wins spelling bee In ‘Blackboard’ by Darren Levin
The Grade 4 student, whose strategy involves tracing the letters onto her hand, won $100 and will now compete in the finals of the competition in December. Mikaela Webb, a Grade 3 King David School student, tied for second place in the competition, which was open to all schools in Victoria. Spellmasters Australia began this year in response to failing literacy levels. It runs monthly spelling competitions for students in primary and secondary schools. Boy genius casts his spell OPPOSITE spelled success for whiz kid Trent Jones.
Schools abuzz over spelling bees Children are fast falling under this English teacher's spell.
However, her move to spread the spelling gospel is unlikely to surprise any of Ms Hampel's past students. A stickler for grammar and punctuation, the English teacher was once dubbed "Miss Apostrophe". Frustrated by dips in literacy levels, Ms Hampel started Spellmasters Australia to refocus on the basics. "As an English teacher for well over 20 years, I am absolutely passionate about English and spelling and grammar," she says. "I've always taught spelling rules (but) I find today that a lot of teachers don't, and spelling in general, I think, has suffered." Spelling bees, it seems, are hot. The enormous popularity of the 2002 documentary Spellbound was an early sign that geek chic was moving out of the advanced class and into the spotlight. In America, competitions such as the Scripps National Spelling Bee attract huge interest and prizes. The ESPN cable sports network has aired the Scripps finals since 1994. This year it moved into prime time on the free-to-air ABC network, attracting 9 million viewers, who watched a 13-year-old New Jersey girl rattle off "ursprache" to take home more than $US72,000 in cash and prizes. NSW has the Premier's Spelling Bee but Melbourne, known for its sports-mad culture, was not offering much for its young intellectual athletes. Now, encouraged by the popularity of the movies Spellbound and Akeelah and the Bee, and the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Ms Hampel feels her initiative is timely. "Australian students haven't had a tradition of spelling bees as they've had in the US, where I think spelling competitions began in the 1920s. Spellmasters, I suppose, was trying to fill that need as well as to see whether students here would be interested in competing this way," she says. The answer didn't take long to surface as schools embraced the idea, enrolling groups of six to eight children. More than 100 students from prep to year 9 have entered the spelling bee so far, and last week's round saw six-year-old Trent Jones from Malvern Primary School outspell grade 5 students to win the junior competition. Nicole Hills, a grades 5 and 6 teacher at Toorak Primary School, says the competitions have improved children's spelling while boosting their self-esteem and confidence. "They love it; it's fiercely competitive but in a fun way," she says. "It's an achievement for them to get up and face their fears about getting up in front of a group of people, and the recognition they've received has given them such a boost of confidence, and that spreads throughout the grade. I've seen an enormous benefit back in the classroom." Ms Hills says the spelling bee has also sparked new interest in spelling rules, letter patterns and word origins. "They are slowly starting to come to the realisation that you just can't pull out a random list of really difficult words from the dictionary. Spelling really involves knowing spelling rules, letter patterns and blends, looking at origins of words, and sometimes it's simply memory with really awkward words." It is this push for back-to-basics learning, Ms Hampel says, that helps to improve spelling and literacy in general. "I'm stunned that people don't know the 'i before e except after c' basic spelling rule," she says. "I also tutor, and the students I come across rarely know basic spelling rules or word patterns, which I find unusual." Most students she tutors are at VCE level. "There has been a drop in the levels of literacy and I've noticed that students are less concerned if they can spell well or produce sentences that are well structured, partly because it has been accepted that it's not vitally necessary." She says Spellmasters uses everyday words, unlike American competitions that throw in uncommon, trick words such as ursprache and weltschmerz. "We try to make it a learning process as well as a competition. I have very simple words in spelling tests and they can still throw students out. I'm not trying to cause the students to fail." Some commonly misspelt words are dessert, embarrass, separate and definitely. Good spellers, Ms Hampel says, know basic spelling rules and understand how words are formed. "If you learn those, you're that step closer. After that it's understanding basic roots and how words come together and language origins." Good spelling also accelerates reading, she says. PM calls for tougher English curriculum Prime Minister John Howard says the study of English should be treated
like professional sports training. The Age - Diary Column A spelling mistake by intrepid fashion reporter Holly Lloyd-McDonald, the multi-wardrobed lass who once bravely trapped herself in a car boot to illustrate Maria Korp's tragic tale, prompted training guru Kim Lockwood to draw it to the attention of the subeditors who knock copy into shape. Here is the offending paragraph: "When photographers clamour along the sidelines and male spectators have to lie on their bellies to peak under court awnings for a glance, you know something's going on." Of course, it's the wrong peak but the poor journo is so flat-chat "This sort of galloping illiteracy is sadly becoming increasingly frequent in copy and correcting it takes up an increasing amount of subs' time. "Perhaps it should be impressed upon reporters once again that they read over their copy carefully before sending it. "If that makes no difference - if some have managed to pass through the education system without learning about such things as spelling, punctuation and grammar - then they have no option, as supposedly professional writers, but to take steps to educate themselves. I - and you, I'm sure - could recommend some reference books. As you may have gathered, I'm fed up with the situation." By David Wroe and Chee Chee Leung EVERY child will be given a "literacy plan" and be tested heavily on their reading skills in the first three years of school under sweeping changes flagged by the Federal Government. University teaching students will have to pass literacy tests before they graduate and school curriculums will be overhauled to emphasise teaching practices that are proven to be effective. Education Minister Brendan Nelson floated the changes yesterday after launching a major literacy report that raises questions about the way reading is taught in Australian schools. "At the moment, we've got a problem where unfortunately a lot of teachers have not been taught how to teach our children reading in the most scientific way," Dr Nelson said. "The end result is we've got about 30 per cent of Australian children leaving the school system functionally illiterate, having trouble with basic spelling, grammar, punctuation." Report backs literacy basics AUSTRALIA's literacy war will be reignited today with the release of a damning report into teaching methods that supports a push for back-to-basics learning…The report will demand the reintroduction of phonics, which relies on knowledge of the alphabet and decoding words by breaking them into syllables and sounds - such as CAT: C-A-T - as the centrepiece of teaching literacy. It will also recommend a radical shake-up of teacher training in the nation's universities and national literacy tests for under-8s. The Australian revealed last month the report would also demand that every child be tested for basic skills when they start school and twice a year for the first three years. Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson has already pre-empted the findings to back the national testing plan. He is expected to shortly announce further reforms to shake up teacher training, accreditation and introduce mandatory tests to ensure graduates do not struggle with basic spelling and grammar. |
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Oakleigh South student Sahil Lobo was never so pleased to hear the word "scoundrel" aimed at him.
Meredith Cheng has just been crowned a champion. She beams as she stands
in front of hundreds of applauding spectators, the media, family and friends. A huge silver cup is thrust
into her hands, dwarfing the tiny eight-yearold as she struggles to hold it above her head. Is she a new swimming champ?
Has she "won an AFI Award?
S-E-C-O-N-D spells success for Caroline from St Joseph's Primary School in
Malvern. The nine-year-old finished runner-up in the junior division at the
recent Spellmaster Australia grand final, held in Glen Iris. The competition
is a haze for the dictionary dynamo, who only remembers spelling the word
"knowledgeable" correctly to secure second place. "I was nervous at the
beginning, but I started to calm down after I got one word right," Caroline
said.
IMAGINE coming to Australia from the Sudan at the age of four, unable
to speak English, and then winning a state-wide spelling competition at
11. 
BETH Rivkah Ladies College student Anya Bonan came first in the junior division of the Spellmasters Australia spelling bee last Sunday.
The Malvern Primary Grade 1 student out-spelled 20 older children to claim the title of junior spelling champion of the Spellmasters Round Four competition on July 9.
LILI HAMPEL thinks it is ironic that a month after seeing Magda
Szubanski, one of her former VCE English students, perform in the
Melbourne Theatre Company's The 25th Annual Putnam County
Spelling Bee, she launched a company promoting spelling
bees.
