Chunk by Chunk at the Geography Bee

Nadia and the Long Words

1Nadia Brooks had studied maps all winter for the fourth-grade geography bee. She could name every ocean and every continent. What worried her was the reading. In this bee, each player had to read a clue card aloud before answering it, and the cards were full of long words.

2"Don't freeze when you see a long word," Mr. Okoye had told her at practice. "First, break it into chunks. Next, look for a prefix or suffix you already know. Then say each syllable and blend the chunks back together."

3On the day of the bee, the school gym was packed with families. Nadia's friend Jun went first. His card asked about the tundra. Jun tapped the table twice, once for tun and once for dra, and then he read the word smoothly.

4Then it was Nadia's turn. Her card said, "Name a peninsula in the southeastern United States." For a second, her mind went blank. Then she remembered the chunks. Pen. In. Su. La. "Peninsula," she read. "Florida is a peninsula!" The judge smiled and nodded.

5In the next round, Nadia's card had the word hemisphere in it. She spotted hemi at the start. Mr. Okoye had taught the class that hemi means half. She also knew that the letters ph often sound like f, as in phone. "Which hemisphere is south of the equator?" she read without stopping. "The Southern Hemisphere," she answered.

6The semifinal round was the hardest. Nadia's card asked, "What is a tributary?" She split the long word into four syllables: trib, u, tar, y. When she blended them, she recognized the word from her map book. "A tributary is a smaller river that flows into a bigger river," she said.

7In the final round, Jun's card had the word archipelago. He knew that in some words, ch sounds like k, as in school. He read the word in five quick chunks. "An archipelago is a group of islands," he said, and he won first place.

8Nadia came in second. She did not mind one bit. She had read every card without freezing. "Next year," she told Jun with a grin, "bring on the longest words you can find."