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Hope I come back with bang next year, says Indian-American student on Scripps Spelling Bee
Ananya Rao Prassanna, who ranked third in this year’s competition, has set her sights on the 2025 national championship.
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Ananya Rao Prassanna is a seventh grader. / New India Abroad
Indian-American student Ananya Rao Prassanna, one of the finalists of the prestigious 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee, has expressed her intentions to bag a first place in the next competition.
“I certainly hope I come back with a bang next year since I’ve made it to third place…,” she said in an interview with New India Abroad. "Giving up doesn't really make sense to me because why give up when you always have another chance?”
The White House invited Prassanna and the other finalists to attend an event on the South Lawn where US President Joe Biden welcomed the Kansas City Chiefs to celebrate their championship season and victory in Super Bowl LVIII.
Bruhat Soma, a 12-year-old Indian-American seventh-grade student from Florida, won this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee, earning more than $50,000 in cash and other prizes.
Prassanna’s journey began with participating in spelling bees in the second grade through the North South Foundation, a nonprofit foundation. She achieved second place in her first competition, prompting her parents to recognize her talent in spelling, and she continued competing in spelling bees, using school lists for preparation until the third grade.
Advising on how to start spelling in competitions, Prassanna said, “I would start by getting enrolled or participating in your school's spelling bees because you never really know how much you're skilled at until you do an actual diagnostic session.”
After the initial participation, she advised to study word lists, read books, and newspaper articles to enhance vocabulary and spelling skills. She also suggested engaging in "dictionary diving" by looking up difficult words starting with a certain letter and creating a list to study with parents.
“Memory actually doesn't really help that much. I would not rely on memory. Memory is the last thing I would rely on,” she said. “I would rely on roots and rules first because they're important. You can't memorize every single word in the dictionary, and that's something important to know,” Prasanna said.
She emerged as the champion of the 2021 SpellPundit National Online Junior Spelling Bee and the runner-up of the competition in 2020.
At this year’s Scripps Spelling Bee competition, seventh-grader Prassanna represented Carolina Panthers.
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