WHAT DO WE DO?
The SBOC organizes annual spelling bees aimed at youth 6-15 years of age.  The participants are placed into one of two categories, Junior age 6 to 8 and Senior age 9 to 15, to vie for scholarships, trophies and prizes.

WHY DO WE EXIST?
The Spelling Bee of Canada was established in response to a need within the community for a stimulating, educational program, outside the regular school curriculum, which would focus specifically on English language basics.  The SBOC’s programs are designed to contribute to the development of our youth’s self esteem, creating pride in academic achievement, and in the process, help to build a solid foundation for their future education and careers.

WHERE DO WE OPERATE?
The Spelling Bee of Canada was established in the greater Toronto area in 1987 and led to the development of an Ontario Spelling Bee.  In 1996, Spelling Bee of Canada offered its program for the first time to students from the Ottawa-Carleton and Valley Region, and in 2001 to the Hamilton, and Kitchener/Waterloo Regions.  To date over 30,000 children have participated in the program.

HOW DO WE OPERATE?
The SBOC is a registered charity (#890470198RR0001).  The SBOC depends on local businesses, organizations and individuals to contribute time, materials, services and/or funds.

WHAT IS OUR LONG TERM GOAL?
With the aid of technology, our strategy for growth over the next 3 years is to target all regions within each province to join the program.  Once regional programs have been established in all provinces, this will lead to Provincial Champions, who will then compete to become National Champions.  Based on extrapolations from the U.S National Spelling Bee data, SBOC’s long-term forecast is to attract approximately one million participants across Canada.

Our mission is to:

• Enrich the learning experience of our youth through growth in English vocabulary, public speaking and self-confidence.
• Engage youth, parents, schools, businesses and the community at large in a yearly education process.

GOALS

Our program goals are to:

• provide young people between the ages of 6 and 15 with the opportunity to participate in a positive, non-competitive spelling exchange to improve their English language, spelling capabilities, comprehension and communication skills;
• develop self-esteem, confidence and interpersonal skills of students by exposing them to positive role models, tutors and peer supports throughout the course of the preparation, the championship and year round follow-up activities;
• promote community-based partnerships by engaging members of various communities in advancing the benefits of the Spelling Bee, getting youth involved and promoting the importance of education, especially reading comprehension and spelling;
• build a network of young people who will act as peer mentors for other students; and play a key role in supporting the academic growth of students, especially in the areas of reading comprehension and spelling through collaborative partnerships with libraries, individual schools and community-based educational programs.

• Julie Spence, President & Founder
• Rob Jarves, Director
• Angela Royes, Director
• Claire Lavallee, Director
• Neville Nunes, Director
• Sylvia Thomas, Director
• Kass Ghayouri, Director
• Kal Narayan, Director

SPELLING BEE OF CANADA RULES AND REGULATIONS

1. An official will read rules 1 to 15 aloud before the beginning of each contest, and, when the number of competitors has been reduced to two, he or she will read rules 16 to 17 unless those present agree unanimously to waive the reading of the rules.

2. The Pronouncer, judge(s) and other officials will be in complete charge of the contest. Any questions or protests about the spelling(s) of a word or the running of the contests must be referred to the officials immediately (before the beginning of the next round). Their decisions will be final in all matters.

NO PROTEST WILL BE ENTERTAINED AFTER THE CONTEST HAS ENDED.

3. For each contest there will be an arbiter whose duty is to hear any protests as they arise and decide on them before the contest continues. The arbiter's decision shall be final. If possible each contest should be videotaped or recorded so that any point of contention may be reviewed.

4. This competition is open to all contestants ages 6-8 (Junior) and 9-15 (Senior).

5. In competition, all words must be chosen from official lists compiled by The Canadian Oxford Dictionary and provided by Spelling Bee officials. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, second edition, is the final spelling authority for the competition.

6. Preliminary Rounds will be held in each area, using official wordlists, and the listed rules and regulations.

7. The competition will be oral; contestants must spell the words orally, and the use of pens and/or pencils and paper will not be allowed.

8. Contestants may pronounce their words before spelling them, after spelling them, or not at all.

9. For all words with capitals, the speller must indicate the capital. For example Ottawa the speller must say "Capital O ttawa".

10. Once a contestant has begun to spell a word, he or she may not ask for a word to be re-pronounced, defined or used in a sentence. Also, having started to spell a word, a contestant will not be given any opportunity to change letters already pronounced. A speller may retrace provided that letters and their sequence are not changed in retracing. Spellers are required to indicate capitals. Apostrophes and other punctuation are not required.

11. If a word taken from the manual is unclear to a contestant, he or she may ask for the word to be re-pronounced, but will not be given a definition or a sentence, unless the word is a homophone in which case the Pronouncer must give the definition and an example sentence without being asked. The contestant must give the spelling of the word as defined, not a homophone of the word.

12. If a word has more than one acceptable spelling, any spelling listed in the manual or tie-breaker list for that word will be accepted.

Note rule 13 is for the tie-breaker round only

13. If a tiebreaker word is unclear to a contestant, it is the responsibility of the contestant to request that the word be re-pronounced, defined and/or used in a sentence. The Pronouncer will grant the request(s) until the officials agree that the word has been made reasonably clear to the contestant. If a word is a homophone, the Pronouncer must give the definition and an example sentence without being asked.

14. Officials may disqualify any contestant who ignores a request to start spelling his or her word within a reasonable length of time. Also, A SPELLER WHOSE SPELLING OF A WORD IS NOT AUDIBLE TO THE OFFICIALS MAY HAVE HIS OR HER SPELLING RULED INCORRECT.

15. When a speller fails to spell a word correctly, the next contestant will be given the same word to spell. If every contestant in a round misspells the same word, all contestants will remain in the competition.

16. The elimination procedure changes when the number of contestants is reduced to two. At this point, when one contestant misspells a word, the other contestant will be given the opportunity to spell the same word.

17. If the second contestant spells the word correctly, plus the next word on the pronouncer's list, then he or she will be declared champion. If the contestant misspells the word on the pronouncer's list, then both spellers continue in the contest.

If both contestants misspell the same word, then both continue in the contest.

SPELLING GUIDELINES

1. Final consonant doubled

(a) A word ending in a single consonant preceded by a single vowel generally doubles the final consonant before a suffix beginning with a vowel, if it is a word of one syllable or if the accent falls on the final syllable of the original word: plan, planning, planned; refer, referring, referred; bid, bidding, bidden; acquit, acquitting, acquitted; commit, committing, committed.

   Exceptions: devil, devilish; benefit, benefited

(b) When a word ends in L, the final consonant is usually doubled before a suffix: cancel, cancellation. NOTE: Words ending in a single consonant preceded by a single vowel do not double the final consonant before a suffix beginning with a vowel if a shift of accent results from addition of the suffix: prefer, preference; confer, conference.

2. Final E

(a) Words ending in a silent E usually drop the E before a suffix beginning with a vowel; dine, dining; trouble, troubling, subdue, subduing; desire, desirable.

    Exceptions: dyeing, singeing (to distinguish from dying and singing), shoeing, canoeing

(b) Words ending in silent E generally retain E before a suffix beginning with a consonant: complete, completeness; enforce, enforcement; vague, vagueness; manage, management, engage, engagement; use, useful; care, careful.    Exceptions: argument, truly, ninth

3. Final Y

(a) Words ending in Y preceded by a consonant change Y to I before a suffix: heavy, heaviest; lively, livelihood; salary, salaried; necessary, necessarily.

(b) Words ending in Y preceded by a vowel generally retain Y before a suffix: annoy, annoyance, annoying; journey, journeyed; gay, gayest.

4. Final C

Words ending in C with the hard sound of K – add K before I, Y or E; Picnic, picnicking; panic, panicky; traffic, trafficking; mimic, mimicked.

5. Final N

Words ending in N retain the N before the suffix – ness; Sudden, suddenness; clean, cleanness; keen, keenness.

6. Words with IE and EI

An easy way to remember the rule for IE and EI is to learn the following rhyme:
I before E
Except after C
Or when sounded like A
As in neighbour and weigh
e.g. believe, reprieve, receive

7. Words with ABLE and IBLE

In writing the adjectival form of certain words there are no definite rules but the following guides may be helpful. Words ending in –ation, usually take the suffix ABLE; duration, durable; adaptation, adaptable; words ending in –sion or –tion usually take the suffix IBLE; division, divisible; permission, permissible; destruction, destructible.

8. Words prefixed by DIS or MIS

When the prefix DIS or MIS is added, no change is made in the original word. A double S occurs only where the original word begins with S: disappear, misdirect, dissatisfied, disrobe, misbelieve, misspelled.

9. Plurals

(a) When a noun ends in Y preceded by a consonant, the plural is formed by changing Y to I and adding ES (to the singular): variety, varieties; monopoly, monopolies.

(b) When a noun ends in Y preceded by a vowel, the plural is formed by adding S to the singular: holiday, holidays; journey, journeys; attorney, attorneys.

(c) When a noun ends in O, the plural in most cases is formed by adding S to the singular: piano, pianos; ratio, ratios. Sometimes the plural is formed by adding ES to the singular: potato, potatoes; veto, vetoes.

(d) When a noun ends in F or FE the plural in most cases is formed by adding S to the singular: sheriff, sheriffs; plaintiff, plaintiffs; staff, staffs; safe, safes. Sometimes the plural is formed by changing F or FE to V and adding ES: knife, knives; shelf, shelves.

(e) The plural is formed in some nouns by a vowel change instead of by the addition of a suffix: goose, geese; man, men; mouse, mice; foot, feet.

(f) Some words retain their original Greek or Latin plural forms. The singular and plural forms are given here: analysis, analyses; basis, bases; phenomenon, phenomena; parenthesis, parentheses; hypothesis, hypotheses.

(g) Some nouns are rarely if ever used in the singular: annals, athletics, clothes, nuptials, scissors.

(h) In compound nouns the plural is usually added to the last member, but sometimes the first member: passerby, passersby; son-in-law, sons-in-law; coat of arms, coats of arms; court martial, courts martial.

10. American Spelling

In competition, spellings that are thought to be "American" will be accepted so long as they are recognized in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, for instance or endings. It may be useful to know some of the main differences.

A Note Regarding the Words in this Manual

WORD SELECTION:

Oxford University Press lexicographers were responsible for the selection of words for this manual and various tie-breaking lists. The correct spelling of each word was verified by reference to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

PARTICIPANTS:

For each word, this manual provides alternative spelling(s), pronunciation(s), the part of speech, one or more definitions and a sentence to show the use of the word. In competition, however, contestants will be tested only on the spelling and need know only one form; the additional information is given only to help the contestant learn the word.

ABBREVIATIONS: