That means there’s an increasingly better fit to different skill levels. Every five minutes, words are rescored for difficulty taking into account the latest data from the Bee spellers. Words are being continuously reanalyzed for difficulty based on how spellers fare. That way a player will always be quizzed at the appropriate skill level - from the orthographically challenged to the most expert spellers.Īs more and more players try the Bee, the game has steadily improved based on data collected on how words are spelled. And conversely, if you’re not a great speller, the words will get easier and easier. The reason why it’s so addictive is that it’s been designed to be adaptive, so the more words that are spelled correctly, the more difficult the words become. It’s clearly habit-forming, with many repeat visitors. So far there have been 15,000 players who have tried their hand at spelling a grand total of 500,000 words. When we launched the Visual Thesaurus Spelling Bee this past summer, we knew there was a built-in interest, but the response was still surprising. Even Great Britain is belatedly joining in the fun, with the (UK) Times currently sponsoring the first-ever national Spelling Bee. Since Webster’s time, the spelling bee has become a distinctly American tradition, with its lasting appeal showcased in movies like Akeelah and the Bee and Spellbound, and the widely watched national broadcast of the Scripps National Spelling Bee on ABC and ESPN. It tells us a lot about how people grapple with the confusing rules of English spelling.Īmerican schoolchildren have been competing in spelling bees for about two centuries now, originally sparked by the spelling textbooks of Noah Webster, whose 250th birthday was celebrated by American lexiphiles two weeks ago. One fun example of this fusion is a new online spelling bee that adapts to players’ skill levels. In my new job, I still get the chance to fuse lexicography with state-of-the-art technology. The development of the Oxford English Corpus has been particularly useful in tracking English usage, illuminating everything from spelling errors to shifting idioms to innovative combining forms like – licious. When I was writing the column “ From A to Zimmer” here, I often talked about how the OUP dictionary program uses the latest computational tools to shed new light on the inner workings of the English language. I think this book should be read with ages six to ten.Greetings, OUPblog readers! It’s been about six months since I had my “ Last Word” around these parts, and it’s good to be back, reporting in from my new vantage point as executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus. In conclusion, there are so many great reasons is why you should read a book about spelling. In the story it said that Meredith was actually a villain! One character that was interesting was Meredith which was the girl that Eugene didn’t like because he was competing against her. In that book they try to discover more about the new girl at school. The other book is called “Captain Awesome and The New Kid”. Eugene wonders if Meredith has superpowers too! So he tries to study by reading all the words he can in books and magazine and everywhere he looks.Īdditionally, my favorite part of the story was when Eugene was thinking about how to spell the word that the teacher gave him. Meredith is not worried at all and knows that she will probably win. But this time, Eugene is really worried because he thinks he might not do very well at the spelling bee. Eugene is Captain Awesome so usually he does well at everything. They are competing against each other to win the spelling bee. To begin with, this book is mainly about a boy named Eugene and a girl named Meredith. In your local library check out the book Captain Awesome and The Ultimate Spelling Bee by Stan Kirby. Gulp! Spelling? If you like books about spelling, here is a book for you.
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