The Beaver County Spelling Bee that was held on May sixth this year is a tradition that Beaver County has been participating in for a while. It is hosted every year by the Pennsylvania Association of School Retirees. Freedom, though, had to pause for COVID, but is now sending students again. A spelling bee is a competitive academic event where students spell words out loud, usually following the rules set by Scripps National Spelling Bee. This year, the annual spelling bee was hosted at Central Valley and has been hosted at Central Valley for the past 2 years.
“I’ve been sending students to the spelling bee for about 10 years.” Ms. Strati, 6th grade ELA and Social Studies teacher, said.
“We brought back spelling lists for every other week. So we do that, and then to review, we’ll have in-class spelling bees. But we brought back the spelling pack since a couple years ago we didn’t do that,” Strati said. To get their students ready, teachers give them spelling packets each week. These spelling packets usually have 15-16 words that students are given a grade for at the end of every other week. On the other weeks in between, students are given vocabulary words for those weeks. They are also given sentence sheets that students have to use and define words in their vocabulary with usually 5 sentences.
“We give the students a single spelling packet of 6th grade words, maybe four to six weeks before the spelling bee, along with other, more basic spelling words every other week,” Ms. Orrico, 6th grade ELA and Social Studies teacher, said. Along with the easier spelling packets that Ms. Strati mentioned, students also get a spelling packet with harder 6th grade vocabulary words four to six weeks in advance from the spelling bee.
“So whoever the winner is of that spelling bee, the school that that student represents is the school that hosts the next spelling bee,” Orrico said. Last year, same as the year before, the student who won represented Central Valley, so that is where it is held.
After he came back, his friends were ecstatic when Josh Czopec announced that he had won 3rd place in the spelling bee.
“For the 5th graders, even if you don’t really like spelling, try to join because it is an opportunity some people don’t have,” Josh Czopec (6), third place spelling bee winner, said.
