285 spellers from eight countries will compete this year for the coveted title of champion at the 88th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee.
The Bee will take place May 26 to 28 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.
The competition began with more than 11 million students participating in spelling bees held in classrooms, schools, and locally sponsored events around the country. Each national contestant is one of the top .000026 percent of spellers nationwide.
“This is an unparalleled journey in word exploration,” said Paige Kimble, executive director of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in a statement.
“From school bees where millions of students learned words they’ll use throughout their lives, to the national stage where champion spellers will take on the most challenging words in the English language, the Scripps National Spelling Bee is proud to have partnered with tens of thousands of schools to help students improve their spelling, increase their vocabularies, learn concepts and develop correct English usage that will help them all their lives.”
Spellers gathering at the Gaylord will bring a diverse cultural background to the Bee, with spellers converging from eight countries: the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan, South Korea and the United States. Competitors hail from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Department of Defense Schools in Europe.
This year, 11 semifinalists are returning to the competition, including:
- Vanya Shivashankar, the Olathe, Kansas, eighth grader – and younger sister of 2009 champion, Kavya Shivashankar – is returning for her fifth time.
- St. Louis eighth grader Gokul Venkatachalam, who returns for his fourth appearance after placing third last year.
- Sixth grader Tejas Muthusamy of Richmond, Virginia, who tied for eighth place in his first appearance in 2014.
- Sam Pereles, a Charlottesville, Virginia, eighth grader who placed 12th last year.
New testing format for 2015
In a change to the format of the Bee this year, the Preliminaries and Semifinals Tests will be in multiple-choice format with responses recorded on bubble test forms. In each test, spellers will be quizzed on 12 spelling words and 14 vocabulary questions.
Performance on the test will be combined with onstage spelling performance to determine who advances to the Semifinals and Championship Finals of the competition.
New for 2015: The Buzzworthy mobile app
For the first time ever, Bee fans can get in on the action of the 2015 Scripps National Spelling Bee by downloading the new Buzzworthy app for iOS, Android and Windows phones.
The Buzzworthy app provides friendly competition with friends, family and co-workers for Bee fans who download the official app of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. With Buzzworthy, fans can follow a group of spellers, earn points when spellers correctly spell words, connect with friends to create hives of spellers, and compete against other hives for bragging rights.
Fans also can stay up to date on the buzz around the Bee with alerts through the final rounds. With the new Buzzworthy app, watching the Bee offers an entirely new level of engagement and entertainment for Bee fans.
The Bee on ESPN:
For the 22nd consecutive year, ESPN and its family of channels will provide coverage of the Bee with hosts Chris McKendry, Paul Loeffler and Kaylee Hartung. The broadcast includes a play-along version on ESPN3 where viewers can test their spelling mettle along with the competitors.
The first day of competition is May 26. Spellers will take to the stage for the first time the following day. ESPN will broadcast the Championship Finals from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT on Thursday, May 28 (watch live on ESPN; play along on ESPN3). Other highlights are as follows:
Preliminaries on Wednesday, May 27, from 8 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. EDT (watch live on ESPN3 or play along)
Preliminaries and announcement of semifinalists on Wednesday, May 27, from 1:15 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. EDT (watch live on ESPN3 or play along).
Semifinals and announcement of Championship Finalists on Thursday, May 28, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. EDT (watch live on ESPN2 or play along).
Bee Informed:
A wealth of information about the spellers and the Bee is available atspellingbee.com. This includes profiles about each speller, past winners and their winning words, a sample test, fun facts and, during Bee Week, round results and regular competition updates.
Bee Buzz:
There are many ways to connect with the Scripps National Spelling Bee, including Facebook and YouTube. Using the Twitter handle @ScrippsBee, the Bee will live tweet every word spelled on stage again this year, which is likely to be more than 700 words. And thousands of professional photos will be available to view and download on Flickr.
