Corona Fifth-Grader To Begin Competing in National Spelling Bee

CORONA, CA - A fifth-grader attending Garretson Elementary School in Corona will begin competing in the 89th Scripps National Spelling Bee today in National Harbor, Maryland.

Aisha K. Randhawa will be among the 285 spellers taking a 26-question multiple-choice spelling and vocabulary test at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center.

The test administered is considered the first round of the bee. The spellers will take to the convention center's stage Wednesday to spell two words. Contestants correctly spelling the first word will advance to the third round.

Spellers correctly spelling their third-round word can be among the maximum of 50 spellers advancing to Thursday's semifinals if their test score is high enough.

A misspelling in either the second or third round means the contestant is eliminated.

Aisha qualified for the national bee by winning the Riverside County Spelling Bee on Feb. 23. Her final word was ambrosia, a noun from Greek and Roman mythology meaning the food of the gods.

Aisha's favorite subjects are math and science. She recently won an award for her science project evaluating whether plastics are harmful to health.

Aisha said she hopes to attend Harvard and become an ophthalmologist "because the eyes are the windows to the brain."

Aisha's free time is filled with playing with her dogs, reading, drawing, swimming and studying words.

The bee is intended "to inspire children to improve their spelling, increase their vocabularies and develop correct English usage that will help them all their lives," according to Paige Kimble, the bee's executive director and 1981 champion.

The bee is limited to students in eighth grade or below, with contestants ranging in age from 6 to 15 years old.

The field consists of students who won locally sponsored bees in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, along with American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Department of Defense schools in Europe.

Six foreign nations are also represented -- the Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea.

The second and third rounds will be shown by the broadband network ESPN3 from 5-8:45 a.m. and 10:15 a.m.-2:45 p.m. (Pacific Daylight Time) Wednesday. The semifinalists will be announced at the conclusion of the third round.

The semifinals will be shown on ESPN2 from 7-10 a.m. Thursday and the finals from 5-7 p.m. Thursday on ESPN.

The finals can also be seen on the WatchESPN app.

Throughout the competition, ESPN3 and WatchESPN will have a multiple- choice "Play-Along" version, where viewers will have a one-in-four chance to pick the correct spelling.

Informational boxes highlighting the word's etymology, definition, pronunciation and part of speech, along with live tweets and the speller's biography are also part of the "Play-Along" version.

What ESPN has dubbed as the "SpellCheck" feature has been added to the main feed, highlighting each individual letter as the speller spells the word. Correct letters will be highlighted in gold and the first letter the speller gets incorrect will be highlighted in red.

The winner will receive $40,000 from Scripps, which owns television stations, cable networks and newspapers; a $2,500 U.S. savings bond and complete reference library from the dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster; and $400 in reference works from Encyclopaedia Britannica and a three-year membership to Britannica Online Premium.

– By City News Service.  Image via Shutterstock.