What is StellarSpeller?StellarSpeller combines the secrets of what makes a great speller with flexible methods for testing your spelling ability. Whether you are preparing to compete in a local or national spelling bee, trying to improve your spelling ability or simply want to see how good a speller you really are, StellarSpeller should challenge as well as entertain you. Why try StellarSpeller?We have divided over 5,000 words into their languages of origin and broken the words down so you can recognize their component parts. Each language has its own peculiarities, which we will teach you. This approach minimizes memorization, which is boring, and concentrates on patterns, which are interesting. Why are English words so difficult to spell?Few other languages have spelling bees, perhaps because few languages are as difficult to spell. That is because many languages keep out words from other languages. Spanish words, for example, are logical and consistent once you know the rules. English is the result of a marriage between two languages: Old English, which is a Germanic language, and French, which is a language derived from Latin. Moreover, English has maintained an open-door policy, letting in floods of words from all over the world. To help the speller, we have adopted this unique approach of returning to the roots of English words. What is Indo-European?The languages of the world divide into large families. English and most of the languages that have made large contributions to English derive from Indo-European, a vast family that stretched from Russia to Spain and now, because of European colonization, includes the New World and Africa. |
Which words are included in the program?At the present time, most of the words included in StellarSpeller are also included in the 2004 Scripps National Spelling Bee Consolidated Word List. This list contains words that are frequently encountered in actual spelling bees, but is not exhaustive — there are plenty of words that might appear in a spelling bee that are not contained in this list. For a downloadable file of these words, go to the Scripps site. Eventually, we hope to include all the words in their consolidated word list, all of which will be referenced with their difficulty code and frequency, as well as words used in GRE and SAT tests. If you have any suggestions for lists of words that you would like to see included in our database, please let us know. Minimum System Requirements
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