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By Phares Mutembei
Children from various Nairobi schools competed in the educative and fun-filled first round of the Spelling Bee Competition at the Jaffery Academy. They tested their English spelling knowledge.
In the competition, the ‘pronouncer’ gave the speller a word, its definition and used the word in a sentence. The speller first pronounced the word before spelling it and pronouncing it again — all this in 30 seconds! Winners advanced to the next round.
At first, it was smooth sailing but the words became steadily harder.
At the end of the day, 12-year-old Nayanka Singh and eight-year-old Muriithi Mweti were happy winners.
"I am good at spelling because I read a lot of storybooks. Today I did not get my spelling wrong,’" said Muriithi, a Standard Three pupil at Makini School.
"I spelt the word ‘customer’ correctly and won! A customer is a person who buys something from a seller. Today I was a customer because I bought ice-cream and chocolate during a break at the competition."
In the Team Spelling, four pupils from each school were given a word and were required to discuss it and the team leader spelt it. At times, it was tough as they lost points. Makini forgot one ‘t’ in ‘forgettable’. Unfortunately Samaj could not spell ‘misfortune’ and dropped points too. And Jaffery got ‘possibility’ wrong.
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Nayanka, the overall winner is in Standard Seven at Samaj School.
"Spelling competitions have helped improve my spelling and grammar," a jovial Nayanka says.
Despite her triumph she had trouble spelling ‘triumphantly’.
Charandeep Singh, a Standard Eight pupil at Samaj School was another top contender. "The competition was tough because contestants had thoroughly done their homework. To be good at spelling English words, you must really read extensively. When you come across a difficult word, it is always a good idea to look it up in the dictionary," advises Charandeep.
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