“People just don’t read much anymore.”

It’s a common complaint. Books have gone the way of electronics; TV and its many, many channels have supplanted the solid weight of a book in hand, the sound of the page turning. Children aren’t being taught to delve into the world between the pages, or to use the imagination to make words come to life.

It might be true for some, but it’s definitely not true for all.

Saturday, the Washington Daily News will host the 26^th-annual Downeast Regional Spelling Bee at the Turnage Theatre in downtown Washington, with the help of a long-lasting sponsorship from Nutrien (formerly PotashCorp-Aurora). For the past 25 years, children ages 8 to 14 have been competing for the title of Downeast champion and the chance to further compete on the national level at Scripps National Spelling Bee held in May each year in Washington, D.C. For this regional bee, these kids are traveling from across eastern North Carolina to pit their spelling skills against those of similar ability.

These kids are great spellers — they’ve already won their own schools’ championship, which has sent them to the next level. But something precedes being a great speller, and that’s being a great reader. Spelling comes naturally to these children, because they’ve not only seen the letters put together to make a given word, but they’ve read those words in context. They know their meanings. They can use them in a sentence.

A love a reading is something every person should pass down to a child in his life. Reading stimulates the imagination and creativity. It teaches comprehension and understanding of different people and different places. It gives children a leg up in their educations. It gives them the tools of communication — words.

Though only one child will walk away a first-place winner in the Downeast Regional Spelling Bee, they’re all winners, just because they’re readers.