Something very exciting has happened in the last few years! Many homeschool students have not only entered spelling bees, but they've been winning!

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine is happy to introduce you to a BIG reason why. Hexco Academic (Serious Tools for the Serious Student) has helped many students along the way from the small local spelling bees to the National Spelling Bee. Let's join in a conversation with Hexco's Valerie Tarrant Browning.

TOS: Thanks for joining us today. You have quite successfully guided many national Spelling Bee participants, and winners, to the National Bee. That's so exciting! How successful has Hexco been in developing a plan that will take a student as far as they can go-even all the way to Nationals?

Hexco: There is a study plan detailed on our website at www.hexco.com that gives some pointers to rising young spellers and offers suggestions and products to consider. In brief, it covers the following:

Step 1: Learn ALL the words in Paideia -and DON'T progress until you have them mastered! This can be done by a committed student with a parent as a coach or using study aids, such as Valerie's Spelling Bee Supplement or Huntley's Spelling Mentor or Onomatomania Activity Books, or just by studying Paideia and looking up the pronunciations and definitions in a dictionary.

Step 2: Start learning useful words beyond Paideia. Consider Why Isn't "Phonetic" Spelled the Way It Sounds (our Spelling Rules Book) if you're a student who learns best with rules and systems and frameworks, or Verbomania, which contains 13,000 vocabulary-enriching words with pronunciations and definitions for those students particularly skilled at memorization. Look into learning etymology either through a Latin course or with our Etyma Mentor software and Etyma Notes booklet to expand your knowledge of the building blocks for words.

Step 3: Study Nat's Notes, which includes words from years of past bees and study booklets in addition to obscure words from various sources. Consider Surprise Word Mentors for computerized extra words from various sources. Study books of bizarre words, like Ultimate Spelling Quiz Book, and finally, the most daunting of all tasks, study the 476,000+ words in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, watching for esoteric words as you go.

This year, nearly 40 percent of all the spellers had used one of our products or another, and this included the top three spellers.

TOS: If a student is truly interested in the spelling bee process, where should they begin? Do homeschoolers follow a different route than public or private school participants?

Hexco: We recommend starting early by contacting your sponsoring newspaper. If you don't know what paper that is, email us, and we'll help you figure it out. The sponsoring newspapers are required to enable ALL students to participate in the local bees. Some require the homeschool groups to work together and have a bee among themselves to send the winner to the regional bee; others ask the homeschooled students to participate in the school bee in their area; and others allow each homeschool group to have a bee and send the winner to the regional bee.

Once you have determined the plan for competing, you need to get the annual study booklet, Paideia, and start learning the words. The other approach is to use Valerie's Spelling Bee Supplement since it is grouped into three main categories, Beginning Words, Intermediate Words, and Advanced Words, and then arranged in a difficulty sequence within each category. This approach can also be taken with computerized efficiency using Huntley's Spelling Mentor that operates by speaking the word and showing the dictionary information and sentence. The Mentor then keeps up with misses so that sessions can be honed to those words that are particularly difficult for a given speller. The Mentor can keep up with the history of 20 different spellers. When a word is successfully spelled, the Mentor shows the etymology of most of the words, thus improving a student's word foundation along the way.

TOS: Hexco has several Spelling Bee guides. How do they work and who should be using them?

Hexco: Students: Only about 20 percent of the words in the annual study booklet are replaced each year, so it behooves a speller to work year-round to learn the entire list. These are the products directed at spellers:

Valerie's Spelling Bee Supplement contains all 3,982 words from the annual study booklet, Paideia, with pronunciations, parts of speech, and definitions. This is a great carry-along book that can be used anywhere.

Huntley's Spelling Mentor contains all the words from Paideia and can be purchased in toto or with only one or more groups of words. Often, a beginning speller needs only the Beginning Words. The software presents the word audibly while showing pronunciations, alternate pronunciations, parts of speech, definitions, and a sentence on the screen. After a word is spelled correctly, the etymology is presented for most words. The Mentor keeps up with words that were missed on the last attempt, words that were flagged, and all words that have ever been missed so that a student can hone his study sessions as words are mastered.

Onomatomania Activity Books are available for each difficulty category, Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced. These contain crossword puzzles, word searches, matching words to definitions, spelling rules as they relate to words in the annual list, words from other languages in the list, and much, much more.

Coaches or Parents: Working with your students using any of the above products is a great idea. Particularly with the Mentor, you can work with him or her rather than be the person constantly correcting mistakes. Take the opportunity to give your student other information about a word or compare it to another, more familiar word, or discuss the origin of a word.

Natalie's Spelling Bee Organizers are available for each level or word, Beginning, Intermediate, or Advanced. Each booklet contains everything you need to conduct a first-class organized bee. There are suggestions and directions for conducting a bee plus the word list with pronunciations, parts of speech, definitions, a sentence, and etymology for words.

Natalie's Mini Organizer is exactly like the full-blown organizers, but this compact booklet contains 200 of each level of words, easily enough for most spelling bees.

Advanced Spellers: Once a speller has learned the words in the annual study guide, there are plenty of other avenues for expanding spelling and vocabulary foundations, and all of this work pays off with better communication skills, better writing skills, and higher SAT scores.

Why Isn't "Phonetic" Spelled the Way It Sounds (or the Spelling Rules Book) has become a sine qua non for many spellers, coaches, and teachers working with spelling. This year, nearly 20percent of all the competitors at the National Bee used this volume in preparation. It contains sections on spelling words from foreign languages that have been assimilated into our English dictionaries and sections of Latin and Greek elements with words derived from each, plus lists of other words that are related in some way. Just for fun, I also included collections of unusual words, such as words with a silent first letter, words with a peculiar set of double letters, etc.

Nat's Notes is a collection of about 10,000 words from nearly 15-30 years of National Bees, old annual study booklets, and regional bees. The word wizards that prepare the spelling bee lists for regional and national bees use about 50 to 60 percent of words that have been used before, so it behooves spellers to work in this department.

Etyma Mentor and Etyma Notes teach Latin and Greek prefixes, roots, and suffixes, introducing two difficult words for each element plus two fairly common words to help students remember the meaning of each element. This greatly expands spelling skills along with vocabulary skills.

Verbomania was designed as an SAT preparation booklet, but it is invaluable in expanding a student's spelling skills. There are approximately 13,000 words with pronunciations and definitions.

Bee Prepared is a book written about spelling at all levels of the National Bee. It is perfect for anyone participating in the National Bee and extremely helpful for those wanting to attend. It goes into such topics as how to conduct a bee, where the off-list words in bees come from, how students learn to spell, and much more.

As you pick products and spelling tools, keep in mind that different students learn in very different ways. I was the memorizer in the trio of sisters and could take any list, look at it, spend time with it, and regurgitate it. Natalie, on the other hand, was a more systematic learner. She learned rules and conventions and systems, and her strength was in applying the rules, rather than in straight memorization. Huntley learned using a combination of the two.

TOS: Where would you recommend a homeschool student start?

Hexco: If you're a very young homeschooler, start with our age-appropriate Spelling Mentor for Homeschool 2nd to 4th Grades. Work through those 1,200 words, learning the associated rules and conventions. Then start working on Huntley's Spelling Mentor for the Paideia words. Begin with the Beginning Words. Perhaps, use the Onomatomania Activity Booklets to reinforce the words. Perhaps use Valerie's Supplement as it will travel with you in the car, on vacation, to wherever you go as a quick study friend when time is available. Next, go to the Intermediate and finally the Advanced Words. This is a very long list of words for a young speller, and it will take two or three years to really master the list. It will change about 20 percent every year, but the new words become easier and easier as your student's spelling foundation broadens.

TOS: Wow! What a great service you provide! Thank you for taking the time to share the "spelling bug" with our homeschool families.

Hexco: Thanks for the opportunity. Our favorite part of the spelling bee process is talking to the students and parents, and hearing success stories, so if you have questions about how to go about this process, we'd love to hear from you! Linda (Mom) is our resident expert, having led all three of her girls to the National Bee, and is a wonderful resource for those of you just starting down this fun path.

Valerie Tarrant Browning, the first of the Spelling Sisters, graduated from Southern Methodist University and later completed her MBA at the University of Texas in 2001. Now married, she works in Houston and is still active in the Hexco business.

Her sister Natalie graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas and Baylor Medical School in Houston. She is a practicing pediatrician in Austin. Sister Huntley graduated from Rice and is pursuing her MBA at Harvard.