PARMA HEIGHTS, Ohio — The pride of Incarnate Word Academy and Strongsville, Ohio is preparing to hit the national stage.
A Northeast Ohio seventh grader has earned a top spot in the highly competitive Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Advait Nishit is beyond talented and brilliant.
He's one of five Northeast Ohio students vying for the prestigious title.
He loves tennis, playing with his black lab, and hiking with his dad.
But his true talent is spelling.
His parents say they knew he had a gift when he started playing with those tiny, magnetic letters of the alphabet when he was around 3 years old.
He immediately started spelling words and forming sentences.
They remain completely enamored by him today.
Walking the halls of Incarnate Word Academy in Parma Heights, the buzz is building around Advait Nishit, whether he realizes it or not.
"You're famous now on Google! You got like three web pages," one student said.
He's in his element hanging out with his classmates and friends.
But the ambitious 13-year-old has been quietly working to achieve a goal.
"It's been a dream for me to go to Scripps National Spelling Bee ever since I was in third grade. How many years ago was that? four years ago," Nishit said.
When you ask Nishit to spell or provide the definition of a word, his skillset is incomparable. He's a human dictionary.
"X-Y-L-O-G-L-Y-P-H-Y. It's carving wood because the root 'XYL' in Greek means wood," Nishit said.
He won his school spelling bee and then took the top prize in the regional bee, ultimately securing one of 231 spots in the Scripps National Spelling Bee this year.
Nishit credits Incarnate Word Academy for getting to this point.
Their curriculum is rigorous.
The students start taking Etymology—which is the study of the origin of words in preschool.
They then study World Cultures in fifth grade and Latin from sixth through eighth grades.
Over time, Nishit says he fell in love with spelling and learning new words.
He's been studying seven days a week, creating a system that works best for him.
"What I prefer doing is studying the common root words, like Latin and Greek root words like hydro meaning water. I listen and just spell it how it sounds to me," Nishit said.
He says there is no such thing as a word that is too long.
"There's a word that means the fear of long words. It's Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia," Nishit said.
The secret to Nishit's success is a little more old-school and traditional. No apps or fancy computer programs are used here.
It all comes in the form of Webster's Third New International Dictionary.
More than 2,600 pages of words, provide a whole new world to Nishit and constantly keep him on his toes.
Longtime second-grade Incarnate Word Academy teachers and spelling coaches Cheryl Delbane and Jill Rolle blindly choose one of the 500,000 some words and the quizzing begins.
"We'll do the Z's. And let's do the last word," Rolle said.
"I take direction from Advait because he's very knowledgeable about words," Delbane said.
Nishit says he wouldn't be here today without the support of his parents and educators, and he's ready to give it his best shot.
"This year I'd like to go to the quarter-finals maybe even the semifinals...say it with confidence! Yeah," Nishit said.
Nishit hopes to one day become a neurosurgeon after he attends St. Ignatius High School.
If he wins, he hopes his parents let him get a ferret.
He competes in the preliminary round Tuesday.
Then Thursday is the finals.
To root him on and watch the Scripps National Spelling Bee, click here.
This isn't the first Incarnate Word Academy student to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Nishit's mom says it's actually a full circle moment.
Back in 2010, Incarnate Word's Anamika Veeramani won the entire thing.
That was subsequently the year Nishit was born.
Nishit's mom watched the spelling bee on TV from out of state.
She says she was captivated by Veeramani's skill set, and never forgot the school she attended.
The Nishits ultimately moved to Cleveland, and ever since then, she wanted her son to attend Incarnate Word.
He's here today, and she couldn't be prouder to celebrate his success.
