Participants in the Scripps Spelling Bee ar (sic) the Olympians of spelling. I hav attended the finals twice and hav been impressed.

But i am also aware that these spellers, with great memorization skills, ar not representativ of the average young literacy learner who is doing their best to learn to read and rite in spite of the unreliability of English spelling.

Spelling is a tool for learning literacy,

English spelling is a blunt and rusty tool. It needs repairing.
Urgently.