Lori Anne Madison Spelling Bee---6-year-old in National Spelling Bee: Lori Anne Madison, 6 year old, the youngest person ever to qualify for the National Spelling Bee competition. Lori was running around in a stream with a friend, hunting for rocks. Suddenly, she came charging up the bank and headed straight for her mother.
Lori has hit all her milestones early. She was reading before she was two.
When her mother tried to enroll her in a private school for the gifted, the headmaster said Lori Anne was too smart to accommodate and needed to be home-schooled.
When Lori Anne spelled “vaquero” to win the regional bee in Prince William County, Virginia, in March, she set a new standard for youth in the national bee’s 87-year history.
Lori Anne was more than happy to let a reporter and photographer tag along at a picnic with other gifted home-schooled children, but she steered any questions about spelling back toward the day’s pursuit of snails, tadpoles and other slimy things.
Asked to spell her favourite word, she raced through the letters of “sprachgefuhl” like a blur. Asked to spell it backward, she paused a bit and had to take her time, but she got it right.
The spelling bee doesn’t have a lower age limit, but no one younger than eight had ever previously qualified for the nationals. Spellers can compete until they’re 15, or until they’ve completed eighth grade.
Asked how she thinks she’ll do this year, Lori Anne simply answered “great” and carried on hunting.
Sukanya Roy, an Indian American, who had participated in the 2009 and 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bees, tying for the 12th place in 2009 and 20th place in 2010, spelt the word ‘cymotrichous’ to clinch the title. For the fourth consecutive year, Sukanya was crowned the champion at the 2011 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC, on June 2.
Roy not only gets the trophy, but also more than $40,000 in cash and prizes and a reference library from Merriam-Webster, $2,600 in reference works and a lifetime membership to Britannica Online Premium from Encyclopaedia Britannica, $5,000 cash prize from the Sigma Phi Epsilon Educational Foundation, and an online course and a Nook eReader from K12 Inc. That comes out to $2,000 for each correctly spelled word.
Lori has hit all her milestones early. She was reading before she was two.
When her mother tried to enroll her in a private school for the gifted, the headmaster said Lori Anne was too smart to accommodate and needed to be home-schooled.
When Lori Anne spelled “vaquero” to win the regional bee in Prince William County, Virginia, in March, she set a new standard for youth in the national bee’s 87-year history.
Lori Anne was more than happy to let a reporter and photographer tag along at a picnic with other gifted home-schooled children, but she steered any questions about spelling back toward the day’s pursuit of snails, tadpoles and other slimy things.
Asked to spell her favourite word, she raced through the letters of “sprachgefuhl” like a blur. Asked to spell it backward, she paused a bit and had to take her time, but she got it right.
The spelling bee doesn’t have a lower age limit, but no one younger than eight had ever previously qualified for the nationals. Spellers can compete until they’re 15, or until they’ve completed eighth grade.
Asked how she thinks she’ll do this year, Lori Anne simply answered “great” and carried on hunting.
Sukanya Roy, an Indian American, who had participated in the 2009 and 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bees, tying for the 12th place in 2009 and 20th place in 2010, spelt the word ‘cymotrichous’ to clinch the title. For the fourth consecutive year, Sukanya was crowned the champion at the 2011 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC, on June 2.
Roy not only gets the trophy, but also more than $40,000 in cash and prizes and a reference library from Merriam-Webster, $2,600 in reference works and a lifetime membership to Britannica Online Premium from Encyclopaedia Britannica, $5,000 cash prize from the Sigma Phi Epsilon Educational Foundation, and an online course and a Nook eReader from K12 Inc. That comes out to $2,000 for each correctly spelled word.
