g $1,000 NATIONAL KIDS SPELLING BEE
Rules

1. Spellers must be in grade three, four or five in a public, private, parochial or home school in North America.

2. The bee only offers one prize -- $1,000 to the winner. There are no runner-up prizes/ribbons or participant certificates.

3. Fees are nonrefundable and nontransferable.

4. The difficulty for words in the competition will start at a fifth-grade level.

5. The judges are in complete control of the competition, and their decision shall be final on all questions. All rules are subject to modification by the judges and/or the event organizer, Justin Rudd.

6. There is not an official study booklet for this competition. All words listed in this dictionary may be considered for this contest: merriam-webster.com and/or dictionary.com.

7. All participants are expected to arrive at the event location with adult supervision no later than 30 minutes prior to the announced starting time of the contest.

8. The role of the pronouncer(s) is (1) to correctly pronounce the word and (2) to give a sentence, definition, and other information about the word at the speller's request(s).

9. The pronouncer and judges are not responsible for the speller's misunderstanding(s) after any exchange of information between the speller and pronouncer(s).

10. The pronouncer(s) may offer information about a word without having requested it.

11. The role of the judges is to determine whether the contestant has spelled the word correctly.

12. The role of the speller is (1) to gather as much information as possible to help spell the word correctly and (2) to spell the word correctly.

13. In competition, after the pronouncer gives the speller a word, the speller is encouraged to pronounce the word before spelling it and after spelling it. The judges may not disqualify a speller for failing to pronounce the word either before or after spelling it.

14. The speller may ask the pronouncer to say the word again, define it, use it in a sentence, provide the part of speech, and/or provide the language of origin. The pronouncer shall grant all such requests until the judges agree that the word has been made reasonably clear to the speller. The pronouncer and judges will not entertain root word questions.

15. The judges may disqualify any speller who ignores a request to start spelling.

16. The judges may not disqualify a speller for asking a question.

17. Having started to spell a word, a speller may stop and start over, retracing the spelling from the beginning. In retracing, however, there can be no change of letters or their sequence from those first pronounced. If letters or their sequence is changed in the respelling, the speller will be eliminated.

18. The competition shall be conducted in rounds. Each speller remaining in the spelling bee at the start of a round shall spell one word in the round. Upon missing the spelling of a word, a speller immediately drops out of the competition. The next word on the pronouncer's list is given to the next speller.

19. Under no circumstance is any speller asked to correct the misspelling of another speller.

20. If none of the spellers remaining in the spelling bee at the start of a round spells a word correctly during that round, all shall remain in the competition with the spellers spelling in the original order.

21. All spellers eliminated in the same round will be tied for the same place.

22. REMOVED.

23. If only one of the spellers remaining in the competition at the start of a round spells a word correctly during that round, a new round shall begin and the speller shall be given an opportunity to spell the next word on the list. If the speller succeeds in correctly spelling the new word, the speller shall be declared the champion. Otherwise (that is, if the speller does not succeed in correctly spelling the new word), all the spellers remaining in the competition at the start of the previous round shall remain in the competition. A new round will begin, with these spellers spelling in the original order.

The champion is not the champion until he or she has spelled correctly two more words than the speller or spellers placing second have spelled. These two words will be spelled consecutively only if the champion is the last speller in a round.

It is possible in two instances to have a round in which only one word is spelled. The first instance of a one-word round is the correct spelling of the final championship word. The second instance of a one-word round is the misspelling of what could have been the final championship word.

24. Any question relating to the spelling of a word should be referred orally to the designated official immediately.

25. Appeals may be filed by a parent, legal guardian, and/or teacher/administrator of the speller who is seeking reinstatement in the contest. The judges will not entertain appeals from individuals seeking to dislodge another speller from the competition. The deadline for filing an appeal is before the speller affected would have received his/her next word had he/she stayed in the competition. No appeal will be entertained after that word has been given to another speller.

26. When only five or fewer spellers remain, an oral appeal must be made immediately, that is, before the speller affected would have received his/her next word had he/she stayed in the contest.

27. If a word has one or more homonyms, the pronouncer will indicate which word is to be spelled. If the listed word is not properly identified, either by defining it or distinguishing the homonyms, any correct spelling of any homonym of the word will be accepted.

28. The speller shall not be disqualified for failing to note that a word is capitalized (noted as "cap," "usu cap," "often cap," or "sometimes cap."

29. The dictionary provided by the judges shall serve as the final authority for the spelling of words. If more than one spelling is listed for a word, any of these spellings will be accepted as correct if the word either matches the pronunciation and definition provided by the pronouncer or if it is clearly identified as being a standard variant of the word that the speller has been asked to spell. Spellings at other locations having archaic, obsolete, or regional labels (such as North, Midland, Irish) that are different from those at the main entry will not be accepted as correct.

30. Previous contestants and winners of this championship bee are allowed to compete in subsequent years as long as they qualify.

31. The Grand Prize is a $1,000 check. A social security number is required and W9 must be filled out in the name of the parent or the winning speller.

32. By participating/attending, organizers have permission to use each student's voice, likeness and/or image in conjunction with this event and future events, on television, radio, social media, the Internet and/or print. 

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