Preview: ABC District Spelling Bee

Thursday. T-H-U-R-S-D-A-Y. 

This Thursday, Cerritos High School will host the ABC Unified School District's annual spelling bee and while the word "Thursday" may not be hard to spell, the day will feature plenty of spelling challenges for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students.

The event, now in its seventh year, will feature 19 students who have competed and won in their local ABC school's spelling bee. 

While all 19 students are given a list of words to study, spelling bee organizer Ellen Fleming says studying the list is not enough to win the competition. 

Fleming said that the to be successful, students must understand the breakdown of words and how prefixes and suffixes come together to form a word. 

"You have to understand the basics of language," said Fleming. 

Fleming also added that spelling bees have seen a sort of resurgence lately and are more popular now than they were 10 years ago.

The winner of the competition will go on to compete in a county-wide spelling bee where he or she will have the opportunity to compete against other children in Los Angeles County. 

From there, two winners from the county spelling bee will advance to compete in a statewide spelling bee. 

Last year's ABC district spelling bee winner, Cathy Huang, ended up advancing to the state spelling bee after she won the Los Angeles County Spelling Bee.

The ABC district spelling bee will be held at 7 p.m. on February 23rd in the Brewer Theater at Cerritos High School.