Spelling bee fun: Ideas for playtime and literacy development

With this week’s focus on the televised drama that accompanies the Scripps National Spelling Bee, children might just get bitten by the spelling bug, as oftentimes, positive peer examples offer the best motivation.

What are the tools that you can offer your child to help them become friends with spelling and literacy?

It's no secret that Webster’s Third New International Dictionary Unabridged is a definitive resource and can be used when a child gets older and deeply into the process of being a wordsmith, but before that time there are ways that will spark interest in learning new words and provide great entertainment as well.

First and foremost in promoting a love of language, is reading. When books are read to a child, they not only serve as an educational and entertaining process, but they foster quality one-on-one time, and it doesn’t matter if it’s an actual cover-to-cover book or something you share off your iPad.

In addition to books, there are television programs that are ideal for introducing children to reading such as PBS KIDS Super Why! , which is perfect for the preschool set.

Online sites, such as Reading Rockets is also an excellent resource as it offers adult strategies along with activities and even lessons to help children with spelling and reading.

Products such as, Spelling Bee: Thinkmap’s Visual Thesaurus is ideal and fun for older children, plus you might discover that the whole family will enjoy using this interesting approach to finding words.

Last, but certainly not least, one of the most unique and primarily word-of-mouth promoted games, Bananagrams has taken the country by storm, and now it’s gone global with international editions.

As a word formation game, it is slightly similar to Scrabble but it is fast-paced, portable and almost addictive as you can play in groups or solo. The game has simple rules and is very affordable.

The video embedded at the end of this post, provided by Mastermind Toys gives you a good idea how much fun the game is to play.

Bannagrams was invented by the Nathanson family: Sandy, Rena, Aaron, Abe, and Ava, and at barely three years since creation, it has been honored by the Toy Industry Association as the 2009 Game of the Year – Best Game.

Don’t forget to tune in tonight for the live broadcast of the Championship Rounds of the Scripps National Spelling Bee at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 7:00 p.m. CT on the ABC Television Network.

PBS KIDS Reading Rainbow turns its last page

After 26 years of giving children reasons to read and opening up the possibilities that the love of literacy provides, PBS KIDS Reading Rainbow turned its last page Friday, August 28, 2009 when the powers-to-be gave the popular television show walking papers.

Over the years, Reading Rainbow was hosted by the genial yet kid-energizing Hollywood star, LeVar Burton, and even with the show garnering two dozen Emmy wins, a Peabody Award, TV Critics Award and NAACP Image Awards those factors did not prevent the program from being shuttered.

As an educational, as well entertaining children’s show, ranked only after Sesame Street and Mister Rogers Neighborhood in longevity, this demise comes as a total surprise.

What caused it? Apparently, it was twofold. Budgeting constraints being one cause (no surprise in this economy) but the other reason, which marked the show for the hit list was an initiative started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration. This initiative placed emphasis on providing children with the basic mechanics for reading, such as phonics and spelling, a niche which the current PBS KIDS program Super Why! fills quite nicely.

In an interview done by Ben Calhoun on National Public Radio’s (NPR) Morning edition, Linda Simensky, vice president for children's programming at PBS explained that when Reading Rainbow was first developed in the early 1980’s everyone was trying to figure out "How do we get kids to read books?"

Well, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Department of Education, and PBS have indeed provided the tools to help children learn to read with programs such as Super Why! but mechanics alone will not make lifelong readers. Once grasped, the tools for reading are marvelous to have but reinforcement is necessary.

Exposing young readers to the vast world of literary titles, as Reading Rainbow did during the last quarter century, opened children to the love of books, with the unlimited possibilities they provided, which (to paraphrase the show’s opening song) enabled them to be anywhere, and to let them be anything - that’s what’s in a book, just take a look.

Reading Rainbow will be missed.