• Participants must be in fifth grade and attend a Brookline public school.

• Participants must arrive at Brookline High School Auditorium at 11:30AM. Registration will begin at 11:30AM and the practice round will begin promptly at 11:45. All spellers MUST participate in the practice rounds.

• All participants will be seated on the stage in an order predetermined by a random drawing of names. The list of names will be provided to the participants and audience at the Bee. Each speller will be given a number to wear around his/her neck during the Bee.

• Participants will spell in the order they are seated on the stage. The first round will include all spellers. Each subsequent round will include only those spellers who spelled their word correctly in the previous round.

• The pronouncers will give each speller a word. The speller must pronounce the word before spelling it and after spelling it.

• The speller may ask the pronouncer to say the word again, define it, and/or use it in a sentence. The pronouncer shall grant all such requests until the judges agree that the word has been made reasonably clear to the contestant. The judges may disqualify a speller who ignores a request to start spelling. Once the speller pronounces the word, he/she has twenty seconds to spell it. The 20 seconds begin when the speller pronounces the word. The speller spells the word and then signals to the judges that he/she is done spelling by pronouncing the word again. For instance, the pronouncer gives the word "bee" to the speller. The speller may ask for a definition and sentence. The speller proceeds by saying, "Bee, b-e-e, bee." The judges indicate that the word has been spelled correctly and the speller sits down.

• The role of the pronouncer is to correctly pronounce the word and give a definition and a sentence, at the speller's request. The role of the judges is to determine if the contestant has spelled the word correctly. The role of the speller is (1) to gather as much information as needed to help spell the word correctly, and (2) to spell the word correctly within the 20 seconds time period.

• The Bee will be conducted in rounds. Each speller remaining in the Bee at the start of a round shall spell one word in that round.

• Upon missing the spelling of one word, the speller is out of the competition. The speller then sits down and turns his/her number card over so that the number is not visible. The next word on the pronouncer's list is given to the next speller.

• In the event that none of the spellers spells a word correctly during the round, all spellers in that round shall remain in the competition, turning their number cards back over to reveal the number.

• At the end of each round, the spellers who missed the spelling of a word leave the stage.

• If only one of the spellers remaining in the Bee at the start of a round spells a word correctly during the round, the speller who correctly spells a word is declared the winner.

* Adapted from the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee Rules and Procedures.