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Show Schoolers, and (V) Home fc J by Dr. Daryl J. McCarty Executive Secretary Utah Education Association There's one problem many of us have that sticks out like a black eye whenever we write something. It's poor spelling. So what do we do about it? Well, for one thing, Utah students stu-dents in the 8-14 year age range will soon have a chance to participate in a statewide spelling contest. Remember them? We called them "spelling bees" a few decades ago. They were popular in school back then, but they faded in popularity. Why? I have my own ideas about that. Back in the "good old days" we staged some spelling bees with the youngsters who misspelled a word leaving the com -petition sitting down and watching the others. Asa result, the people who participated most were those who needed it least the good spellers. So the spelling bee as a teaching device wasn't doing as much for as many students as it m ight have. But wait. That doesn't mean spelling contests can't be made to reach everyone. And that's the beauty of the one that will be going across the state in the next few weeks. As you would expect, there will be recognition for the winners in the schools, districts, dis-tricts, regions, state and even the nation. But there's another factor fac-tor in the competition. The youngster who is named the most improved speller will also win an award. That means youngsters who are not perfect spellers can be winners, too. If they can win, there's m ore incentive for all the students to study their spelling spell-ing word lists harder, com -pete more enthusiastically, and (this is important) learn more. The objective of the spelling spel-ling contests is for students to become more conscious of spelling, to increase the number of mastered words, and to produce fewer "black eyes" in the papers they write. |