- What: A new type of no-pronunciation spelling / vocabulary bee focused on SAT Words.
- When: November 4th
- Where: Virtually, over Zoom (from the comfort of your home)
- Prize Money: $250 for the winner, and $2 goes to charity for every word you correctly spell.
- Registration: Sign up here. Registration is free!
- Eligibility: To all US middle and high school students (Grades 6 through 12).
- Follow us for daily practice and fun: Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok and YouTube.
Mark your calendars for Saturday, November 4th!
I’m running a bee open to middle and high school students that will focus only on words found in the SAT tests, and those found in newspapers and books. What’s the catch? Pronunciations will not be provided! Instead, I’ll be providing you with clues to the pronunciation (like what the word sounds like in the originating language, and the pronunciation of a different word that has similar origins to the word you need to spell). Read on for details, and if you’re interested for a chance to win $250 – sign up here.
You’ll be given all the normal clues given in a spelling bee: the part of speech, the etymology (clues about the origin of the word), an example sentence (with the word itself blanked out), and the meaning of the word. In addition, we’ll provide deeper information about word origin to compensate for the lack of pronunciations.
For instance, here’s a word you can try to puzzle out:
This word is an adjective means “difficult or impossible to understand, enigmatic, inexplicable”
The word comes from French. The French word in turn has a part that derives from a Greek word meaning “to initiate into religious rites”, which went to Latin, and then to English. This part was then suffixed with a French adjectival ending to form the French word (which then passed to English)
Another related word from the same Greek root is ‘misterioso’, which is a direction in music.
Example sentence: “When Zambian authorities searched a private jet that arrived from Egypt last week, they found a <blank> trove that included millions of dollars in cash, hundreds of bars of what appeared to be gold, and weapons.”
Here the “blank” in the example sentence is the word, which is not pronounced, and therefore just referred to as “blank”.
The word is “mysterious”. Notice how a lot more etymological information is provided, including the meaning of the words in the original language, and related words that derive from the same origin word. You can try to solve the daily challenges I post on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok and YouTube.
My hope is to have a bee that forces you to focus deeper on everyday words, and to learn root information deeper. I hope to help you strengthen your roots knowledge for regular spelling bees and prepare you for the SAT – all in one shot!
Along with helping you further your knowledge of words, this bee has another purpose. For every word a contestant spells correctly, Mighty Words Learning will be donating $2 to NAMI, a nonprofit that aims to reduce mental health stigma and provide support to those struggling with mental illness. You can check out their website here. Additionally, the first place winner will receive $250 in prize money.
Returning to the bee–if you don’t quite get how it works yet, that’s alright! I’ve created a YouTube video with an example of how it’ll go. You can check it out here.
To register and receive study materials, please sign up here. Entry is completely free. I hope to see you on November 4th, and best of luck to all!
The Silent Bee™ and the No-Pronunciation Bee™ are trademarks of Mighty Words. U.S. patent(s) pending for software (www.mightywords.co) and bee mechanics.