Sarv Dharavane, a DeKalb County fifth grader, has learned thousands of words in his time competing in spelling bees, including one that sums up his experience: difficile.
It means difficult or hard to do, he said. Example: Placing 22nd in the Scripps National Spelling Bee as a fourth grader — the first year that students are eligible — then heading to the national contest again the following year.
Yet, Sarv seems to make spelling difficult words look easy.
Last week, Sarv won the Georgia Association of Educators’ 64th Annual State Spelling Bee for the second year in a row. He and runner-up Sara Daoud, a seventh grader from Columbia County, will represent Georgia at the National Spelling Bee in May in Maryland.
Holding a trophy almost as tall as him, he said it feels good to spell a word right on stage. “Like floating in the air.”
Though it takes a lot of hard work, competing in the spelling bee again this year felt like an obvious choice to Sarv, who lives in Dunwoody.
“I have the potential,” the 11-year-old Austin Elementary student told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I already tried so hard and I made it really far, so why not try again and do it even more?”
Sarv has always been a reader. He and his family regularly check out the maximum 50 books allowed from the public library. It’s an easy, fun way to learn a lot of new words.
So when his class hosted a spelling bee, he wanted to participate — and it kind of snowballed from there.
He learned 450 words for the school bee, then 4,000 for the county bee. Suddenly, he was competing in the regional, state and national bee, and more than 400,000 words in the English dictionary were in play.
Credit: Getty Images
Credit: Getty Images
In addition to reading for fun, Sarv practiced two to three hours a day, between studying the dictionary and his parents, siblings and friends all taking turns quizzing him on spelling and definitions.
“Our vocabularies have increased a bit because of him,” said his dad, Shailesh. Which is the entire point, he said: “There is no actual win or loss in this competition. It’s all about learning.”
From his experience last year, Sarv knew that no matter how practiced you are, nerves can mean the difference between spelling a word correctly or not. When he’s on stage, he has to remind himself to stay calm.
“Practicing is like the kiddie pool,” he said, “and the spelling bee is like, just the ocean. You’re just scuba diving.”
Sarv’s efforts meant something to his community, said Principal Avis Mooneyham.
“Last year, and I foresee it coming again, it was a really big rally for the community. Everyone was tuning in,” she said, adding that restaurants aired the national bee and her own children were following Sarv’s progress.
At the state bee last week, Sarv’s methods paid off again. He spelled words like “alcarraza” (an earthenware container), “salinelle” (a mud volcano), “berghaan” (an African eagle) and, the final word, “compas” (a popular type of music in Haiti).
Sarv said to celebrate, he’d take the day off of studying.
But just one day.
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