A Way With Words: Middle School Student Preps for Spelling Bee

UPDATE: University City Patch spoke with Christine's mom Saturday afternoon and she said Christine was knocked out in the fourth round of competition.  

On Friday, the afternoon before the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Spelling Bee, the University City contender seemed fairly calm.

“I’m a little nervous but I’m just I’m just gonna go with the flow," Christine Politte said.

The  student had to get through the written phase of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Spelling Bee before advancing to the oral portion Saturday. Politte recalled two of the words she had to wrangle with: raconteur and inselberg.

Say what? 

For the record, Dictionary.com defines raconteur "as a person who is skilled a telling stories and anecdotes interestingly." The Encyclopedia Brittanica says an inselberg is an "isolated hill that stands above well-developed plains and appears not unlike an island rising from the sea."

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Spelling Bee Web site lists 32 contenders for the showdown at Maryville University. Politte said that to advance she and her fellow spellers had to get 23 of the 25 words right in the written portion of the competition.

Politte said her preparations for the bee include vocabulary quizzes with her mother and researching words that won past contestants the contest.

As far as strategy, the young speller said she often asks bee officials for a word's language of origin. She explained that knowing whether a term has its basis in German, Latin or another language can help the speller formulate the word -- even an unfamiliar one.

Aside from that, Politte said she plans to get a good night's sleep.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Spelling Bee takes place at the Maryville University auditorium Saturday, starting at 9 a.m.