Spelling bee prep - software to sort by spelling difficulty?

March 7, 2015 4:39 PM

My son is going to a regional spelling bee and we've got about 1000 words to learn. Is there a way to (roughly) sort the words by spelling difficulty? Right now I've sorted by word length but that doesn't really help.

Here's the list if anyone's interested.

My hope is that I can find the bar at which he finds words difficult, then we can focus on those words and harder rather than spending time on the easier ones. The algorithm doesn't have to be anything special, but anything helps.

Thanks!

posted by jragon to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

You could put them into some kind of spaced repetition software like Anki- as he works through them and tells the software whether he got it right or not, it will adjust how often it gives him those words to practice.
posted by MadamM at 4:47 PM on March 7, 2015 [6 favorites]

I would recommend spaced repetition software like Mnemosyne. By rating how well he knows how to spell the words the program will learn the ones he has trouble with and show those more often.

Mnemosyne has the ability to play audio which could be useful for spelling flash cards.
posted by dweingart at 4:49 PM on March 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

I would sort them by root language. Put all the German, Greek, Latin, and Arabic roots in separate piles and learn them together. Then you can play tricks like "This word sounds Greek, so the F sound must be a Ph."
posted by yarntheory at 4:52 PM on March 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

I would do it the way I studied for exams in medical school (which involve tons of rote memorization). It's not an algorithm, but I would go through the material and copy out all the items that I felt I didn't have committed to memory yet. Then I would take a second pass and if I felt I had learned more of the items, I'd highlight the parts that I still didn't know cold. On my third pass I would only study the highlighted stuff, so by that point it would be a short list of 'high yield' items. Sometimes I would either do a quick run-through of my highlighted notes immediately before walking into the test, or make a flashcard/page with some of the final items I still needed to know to look at right beforehand. This is just an example of a learning style that works well for me. Wish I was that disciplined in my spelling bee days, I'm sure I could have made it beyond the state bee!
posted by treehorn+bunny at 5:49 PM on March 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thirding spaced repetition - it will help you figure out which words are difficult *for your son* which is the really important part. If you notice a pattern as to which are difficult (Greek stem words or something) then you can focus on that. But seriously, spaced repetition is incredibly powerful and effective.
posted by mskyle at 6:29 AM on March 8, 2015

Is this a mother-son spelling bee, and/or is your son under about 5? (Serious question--I could kind of see that being a thing, and I'm thinking from your statement that "we've got about 1000 words to learn" that there's at least some reason you're directly involved.)

If not, the very best way to organize the words by difficulty is to use the absolutely amazing computational engine that is your son's brain. That is, he should be solving this problem: figuring out how to organize and schedule his studying, trying various methods and testing himself, etc. By taking over the problem you're robbing him of the actual opportunity to learn (and learn how to learn).

Spelling of obscure words is probably not something you actually care about instilling in your child. The ability to say "hmm, I want to know X, Y, and Z," make a plan to get there, and execute it (dealing with any problems that come up) is.
posted by cogitron at 7:59 AM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Spaced repetition software like Anki or Mnemosyne is absolutely the way to go. It has saved me in language classes many times, including written Chinese.
posted by Known Weasel at 12:07 PM on March 8, 2015