What are the rules for the Scripps National Spelling Bee?

The 2022 Scripps National Spelling Bee is taking place this week. The preliminaries took place on Tuesday. The quarterfinals will run on Wednesday, June 1st from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET. The semifinals follow from 8-10 p.m. ET and the finals will take place on Thursday, June 2nd from 8-10 p.m. ET. All rounds will be aired on ION. There will be a live stream that tracks the action at SpellingBee.com.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee changed its format in 2021 as they wanted to put more of an emphasis on understanding rather than just reciting spelling from memory. The second round of each level of competition will again feature a word meaning round which will see each speller selecting the answer to a vocab question in multiple-choice format.

In the quarterfinals, there will be rounds of oral competition starting with spelling. This will be followed by a round of multiple-choice word meanings before reverting back to spelling for the final round of the quarterfinals. The semifinals and finals will follow this same format. The only difference for the finals is that there will be rounds of oral spelling until a champion is declared.