Karelyn Malliet is preparing to defend her 2014 Badger State Spelling Bee title next week, and her chances of advancing to the Scripps National Spelling Bee have improved, courtesy of a new wrinkle.
Rather than only first-place winners, the top three spellers in Wisconsin will advance to the national bee this year.
Malliet, an eighth-grade student at Shawano Community Middle School, is taking nothing for granted as she prepares for the state bee with 47 other contestants March 28 in Madison.
“I am slightly nervous about it and I hope I am prepared for it,” said Malliet, who captured her third straight CESA 8 title Feb. 9 and school district title Jan. 21.
Malliet’s previous trips to Madison, which include an 11th-place finish as a sixth-grader, should help her, said Craig Ferch, school psychologist and district spelling bee coordinator.
“Just having that experience will probably ease some of that anxiousness, because she knows what it is like,” Ferch said. “She is ready.”
Malliet has spent months studying a list consisting of 450 words supplied by bee organizers, but other words might be needed, depending on the number rounds the competition takes.
“You don’t know what words you are going to end up getting in the final round, so you got to be ready with whatever they throw at you,” Malliet said. “The competitors are probably more prepared; everybody has memorized those lists leading up to the final round.”
Malliet captured the CESA 8 title with the word “easel.”
“I can pretty much guarantee she is not going to have an easy word like ‘easel’ at state or nationals,” Ferch said.
Malliet has various strategies to help her study. She has a notebook containing thousands of words, and she researches the origin of each word.
“I like knowing origins because it helps me figure out how the word could possibly be spelled,” Malliet said.
Malliet finished one point shy of advancing to the semifinals of the national bee last year, falling short on the computerized vocabulary portion.
The state vocabulary exam, which was introduced last year, consists of two words, with two multiple choice answers, for each.
“The state is easy enough because they don’t make the vocabulary words very hard,” Malliet said. “Someone else got ‘balcony’ last year, and that was not very hard.”
Neither the school district nor CESA 8 spelling bee has a vocabulary portion.
The Badger State Spelling Bee has been sponsored by the Wisconsin State Journal since 1949.
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