Why Indian Kids are too good at Spelling Bee - Washington Post Article

Free website for Science videos for kids - http://www.makemegenius.com 

On Thursday night, 14-year-old Snigdha Nandipati won the Scripps National Spelling Bee, acing the word "guetapens" in the final round. Nandipati, who beat out fellow Indian-Americans Stuti Mishra and Arvind Mahankali to win the title, was the fifth consecutive Indian to take the Scripps crown and the 10^th in the last 14 years. Two years ago, Ben Paynter revealed the secret to Indian spelling success: a minor-league circuit sponsored by the North South Foundation. The original article is reprinted below.

This April's North South Foundation bee in Shawnee, Kan., might seem like an obscure place to find the spelling world's two biggest stars. Mostly, it looked like the sort of geeky local bee I might have attended as a kid—except everyone there was Indian. Inside Shawnee's Hindu Temple and Cultural Center, 23 awkward kids took turns passing a microphone back and forth in a hushed beige auditorium. No spotlights, no podium, just cringe-inducing feedback on the P.A. system. And for the record, the spelling was a-t-r-o-c-i-o-u-s. Just three of the first 10 contestants spelled their words correctly. At one point, a poor kid paced in circles and clutched his crotch before misspelling beleaguered and sprinting off to the restroom.

Amid it all, 13-year-old Kavya Shivashankar pronounced words from a fold-out judging table as her father, Mirle, emceed in a sharp dark suit. Kavya, the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion, is a spelling superstar complete with signature move: She air-writes each word across her palm before speaking it. Kavya and Mirle—her innovative, ever-enthusiastic coach—were at the small-time competition to pay homage. Over the past two decades, tournaments like this one—a regional qualifier for the North South Foundation's spelling league—have become a breeding ground for Scripps contenders. These minor-league competitions help kids as young as 6 years old work out the spelling kinks at an early age. The result has been an Indian-American dynasty at the National Spelling Bee.

Consider the facts: Indian-Americans make up about 1 percent of the U.S. population; this year, an estimated 30 NSF-ers will compete at Scripps, 11 percent of the 273-kid field. Recentwinners include Sai R. Gunturi from Dallas, who nonchalantly reassembled pococurante for a national title in 2003. Sameer Mishra from West Lafayette, Ind., nailed guerdon in 2008. And four-time finalist Shivashankar made it back-to-back titles for North South Foundation competitors last year, air-writing Laodicean for the win. If Shivashankar hadn't come through, it's possible another North South graduate would have: Four other NSF kids cracked the top 10behind her.

The NSF circuit consists of 75 chapters run by close to 1,000 volunteers. The competitions, which began in 1993, function as a nerd Olympiad for Indian-Americans—there are separate divisions for math, science, vocab, geography, essay writing, and even public speaking—and a way to raise money for college scholarships for underprivileged students in India. There is little financial reward for winners (just a few thousand dollars in college scholarships) compared with the $40,000 winning purse handed out each year by Scripps. Still, more than 3,000 kids participated in NSF's spelling events this year due in part to what NSF founder Ratnam Chitturicalls a sort of Kavya Effect. "Most American kids look up to sports figures," he says. "Indian kids are more interested in education, and they finally have a role model."

Just as Kavya Shivashankar has inspired the next wave of Indian spellers, Kavya found her bee mojo during the post- Spellbound boom. Before Spellbound, the 2002 documentary that featured Indian-American Nupur Lala's run to the 1999 Scripps title, many first-generation South Asian parents saw NSF as a way for their children to assimilate—the best way to understand a culture, after all, is to learn its language. They used the North South Foundation events as a sort of SAT prep, teaching their children to use phonetics, etymology, and word roots to suss out answers. "Our focus is not on competition," says Chitturi. "Winning becomes an outcome of you focusing on learning. You are competing against yourself, not these other people."

After Spellbound, that changed a bit. After Balu Natarajan (winning word: milieu) became the first Indian-American to win Scripps back in 1985, he went on to a career in sports medicine. When Lala did it in 1999 with logorrhea, she became a movie star. (OK, a movie star and aneuroscientist.) Kavya has called Lala an inspiration—the license plate of Mirle's teal minivan reads "SPL BND." She's far from alone. In 2002, NSF had less than 20 chapters pulling in about 500 mostly middle-school-age spellers. Then pop culture galvanized an expansion to elementary schoolers; today, six times as many students compete in North South Foundation spelling events. "The parents were just excited," Chitturi says. "They saw that it was a possibility [to win the National Spelling Bee]."

It's no coincidence, then, that in the last decade North South Foundation has transformed from an SAT prep course into a training ground for Scripps. It wasn't too long ago that NSF standouts like Kamran Riaz and 2000 champion Ashley Thakur didn't compete at the National Spelling Bee. Riaz, for one, remembers NSF as a nice "alternative" to Scripps. Thakur's thoughts on the National Spelling Bee: "Not to brag, but I don't think it would be a hard cake to cut," she once bragged to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

It's not quite right to say that Riaz and Thakur didn't go to nationals because they didn't think it was a big deal. The more significant reason is that they simply weren't eligible. You have to be more than a great speller to qualify for the National Bee—you also have to live in a school district with a sponsoring newspaper or community organization. These days, parents seem to be paying a lot more attention to such logistics. When Mirle Shivashankar realized in 2005 that there was just one Scripps sponsor in all of Kansas, he beat the bushes to ensure that more kids from the state—his daughter, for one—would have the chance to go to nationals. Kavya subsequently gained all of her berths to the nationals by virtue of a brand-new sponsor, theOlathe News.

The North South Foundation could dominate Scripps even further, if more of its spellers were eligible to compete. In areas with more gifted NSFers than competition zones, the battle to get into Scripps can be intense. Whereas regional North South Foundation competitions are run like standardized tests—the best scores get weighted against a national average to determine the national finalists—Scripps operates more like a crazy single-elimination tournament. The winner in each local bracket funnels into a pool of finalists, who repeat the same process to pick a winner. That can lead to some powerhouse regional showdowns. In San Jose, Calif., for instance, eventual 2009 NSF senior co-champion Ramya Auroprem had to beat out 2009 NSF runner-up Sidarth Jayadev just to make it into last year's National Spelling Bee finals.

North South Foundation winners don't have to worry about Kavya Shivashankar anymore—she has retired. At the Shawnee NSF contest this April, Swetha Jasti placed first, with a perfect score that qualified her for NSF nationals later this summer. But unfortunately for Jasti, she won't make it to Scripps this year. When the National Spelling Bee starts up this week, their region will be represented by a surprise challenger: Kavya's 8-year-old sister, Vanya, who drubbed Jasti in the National Spelling Bee's Olathe qualifier.

For youngsters like Vanya, this is Scripps' best selling point: Whereas the North South Foundation still divides contestants into junior and senior levels, the National Spelling Bee has no minimum age requirement. Vanya, who has taken to referring to herself and her sister as the Eli and Peyton Manning of spelling, will be the youngest competitor in Washington, D.C., this year. When ESPN recently showed up in Kansas to film a miniprofile for the contest, she grinned unabashedly. "Now it's my turn," she proclaimed to the room full of cameras. As with most things in the life of an NSF standout, the moment seemed well-rehearsed.

Helping Children / Kids in Home Work -No Tutions

Helping kids in home-work is becoming a challenge day-by-day. With both parents busy in the office jobs & carrying home the stress ,helping kids in their studies has taken a back-seat.

Tutions from a very young age has become a fashion rather than neccessity. You can find kids as young as 6-7 years going to 2-3 coachng classes?Is it good for next generation?

Helping kids in home work not only helps parents to understand their progress in school, it also can give lot of insights about school,about their friends & about development of the kids in general.Apart from it ,it can be very easily said that it adds to emotional bonding among parents & children .Importance of sitting with kids & taking them through different subjects with day-to-day examples ,importance of a parenet can't be over-emphasized.

But despite all of  the above, as a parent ;we all are hard pressed for time.May be a week-end is all what we have.

In west , parents have found an innovative solution for the same. They spend time with the kids ,although little ,but they try to make best out of it. This is what they called spending "Qulaity time" with children.

They use cartoons, animations & vidoes for school subjects.These videos not only help children to get acquainted wwith internet at a very young age ,but they narrow down the key areas to be focused for each subject. Also lot of these contain day-to-day examples ,which help chidren to grasp the subject easily.

These videos help kids in their home-work revision, understanding the subject deeply & easily.Few of the videos ,you can refer to are as following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwwQU8DBaY8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjyI4CmBOA0

Best advantage of these are that children can spend 15-20 minutes a day & they can become masters of the subjects. Also they can see these again & again ,which is not possible for class-room teaching lessons.

for more videos ,you can visit sites like http://www.makemegenius.com

New way of Teaching

Text book teaching is now a passe. 

Schools in USA & UK have now moved to class room videos . 

"Seeing is Believing" is the key to new learning methods.

More than rote, understanding concepts has become neccessary.

Don't believe it.

Have a look at following videos ,sit with your kids after you make them watch these videos, check their progress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwlr2uSSgcc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydX8Lw4q2Mk

Compare it with normal learning process, see the difference?

This is new way .... learning through videos with lot of day to day examples incorporated in these.

Hope you start believing in these.

For more videos ,you can visit 

http://www.makemegenius.com

Free Science Videos for Kids -Best Indian Educational Website

We ,as parents of two kids of 6 & 11 years, used to struggle a lot for home-work help for our kids as well as to give them quality understanding.

Being working parents ,we are always pressed for time, so wanted some short-cut to spend less time with greater outputs for kids. Also as grown-up professionals, we believed in adage"Seeing is Believing" .

So started our quest for quality education videos. First we bought lot of video CDs from market, but found those very low-quality & then you have to pay for the same without knowing what is inside.

Then we took resort in Google.We would type the subject name in google  plus video in it. To our surprise,we came across thousands of videos on several websites. 

Then we realized that we are not first ones to look for this route.Parents all across the globe are searching for this way of teaching their youger-ones.

But along came the trouble-how to short-list relevant videos ,which are suitable for our own kids. Few were of very low quality or for toddlers & other were for grown-up kids.

That is a problem ,which every parent faces. After one year of struggle ,we came across few relevenat websites .Apart from You Tube ,would like to list those for help of other parents

a) www.neok12.com -it is one spot ,where you would find all sorted videos ,that is the best part .But again issue comes of level or grading.

b) www.brainpop.com-excellent site , but it paid.

c) http://www.makemegenius.com -this has been made by us so obviously we've tried to minimize what we found lacking in others. 

d) www.discoverykids.com -again a great website , but is more of extra-studies .

So try to teach your kids with help of videos.We found these very effective.

Best Education Websites for Kids

1. Streaming.discoveryeducation.com
Home school education is what this site basically focuses on. With automated ready to use tools, interactive videos and integrated slide shows, this educational website is an instant tool for teaching toddlers as well as for self study.

2. Netrover.com
Children have always enjoyed a blend of education with fun and play. Room 108 is therefore a perfect educational website to meet the creative ends of your child. Graphical user interface further helps effective honing of skills and subsequently efficient results.

3. Britannica.com
Britannica is equivalent to an educational brand which sells only by its name. In regard to the same, Britannica.com has delved into the world of internet. It helps kids play around every possible subject with a sense of curiosity. Indeed, power is inherent to ideology!

4. Enchantedlearning.com
From information pertaining to entrances such as TOEFL, SAT and alike to Pictionary and colouring pages; everything is served in a golden platter at enchantedlearning.com. Furthermore, it has also been stated as one of the best sites in United Kingdom.

5. Makemegenius.com (http://ww.makemegenius.com
With every detailing in the form of video presentations, makemegenius.com is truly a genius producing website for children between the age of 6 and 12. Majorly focusing on subjects of Maths and Science, makemegenius.com is pretty much a positive captivator for kids to keep them entangled between their lessons and studies.

6. Brainpop.com
Practical learning has always proved to have a greater impact and better results in comparison to theoretical learning. Taking into consideration the same, brainpop.com stands top on the pedestal with interactive videos on various categories like, Engineering and Technology, Maths, Science, Social Studies, Art and Music, Health and so on.

7. Bbcearth.com
Who said textbook knowledge is enough? Merely being bookworms or only being aware of what’s in books doesn’t help much in this era of cut-throat competition. Everything else you thereby need to know is best available on bbcearth.com. With a stupendous narration, the videos are truly world-best and cent percent knowledge gaining.

8. Howstuffworks.com
Howstuffworks.com is an ultimate portal to quench all your thirst for knowledge. Your quest for almost every possible question will come to an end the moment you research through howstuffworks.com. not only that, all your nested questions will also be sufficiently answered by this thought-provoking educational website called howstuffworks.com.