Tasha wanted to be in the third-grade spelling bee, but spelling was not easy for her. During practice, the words seemed to jump around on the page. On Monday she spelled "basket" right, but on Tuesday she missed "window" and sat down with a sigh.

That afternoon, Tasha's grandmother put index cards on the kitchen table. Together they clapped the beats in each word. Tasha wrote tricky words three times and used them in sentences. When she got one wrong, Grandma did not let her quit. "Try it again," she said. By Friday, Tasha still felt nervous, but she knew she was better prepared.

At the spelling bee, Tasha's hands shook when the first round began. She took a slow breath and remembered to listen for every sound. She spelled "garden," then "Saturday," then "careful." In the last round, she missed a very long word and did not win first place. Still, Tasha smiled as she sat down. She had stayed calm, worked hard, and made it farther than she had in practice.