Hours Of Study Lead To Spelling Bee Berth

SAN MATEO (CBS SF) – The road to the 2016 CBS Bay Area Spelling Bee takes many twists and turns for the 50 youngsters who earn a spot in the field.

Before advancing to the regional finals, each contestant has to first become a champion speller in their respective school.

Then they have to be among the 50 top scorers on the written test.

Many schools have developed fun ways to prepare their students. At St. Matthew's Episcopal in San Mateo in some extremely competitive rounds of Scrabble.

"It's the fun of putting words together," Julie McMillan, Language Arts Chair at the school, told KPIX 5.   "And the fun of watching kids light up when they found they've just spelled something really cool."

Spelling bee preparation became all-school event at Bethel Lutheran School in Cupertino where students shape letters of a given work with their posture.

"It's a fun way to study spelling," said third grader Matthew Klinger.

Some spellers rose before dawn to study in groups like at Oster Elementary in San Jose. They also invited Bee veteran Anwesha Mishra to stop by and give the kids a pep talk.

"Be friends with that word," said Mishra, who is a seventh grader. "Not like kind of hate that word. Use it everywhere you go."