BRAIN-CHILD: This week, Virginia resident Lori Anne Madison will become the youngest ever contestant in the National Spelling Bee. “She’s like a teenager in a 6-year-old body,” says her mom. (AP)
McLEAN, Va. — The youngest person ever to qualify for the National Spelling Bee is splashing around in a stream, hunting for rocks. Suddenly, she charges up the bank, rock in hand, and heads straight for her mother.
“Hold on to that basalt,” Lori Anne Madison says in a bossy 6-year-old’s voice, “and do not drop it.”
“Go away,” her mother, Sorina Madison, responds playfully.
This week, the precocious girl from Lake Ridge, Va., will be on stage with youngsters more than twice her age and twice her size as one of 278 spellers who have qualified for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
“She’s like a teenager in a 6-year-old body,” Sorina marvels. “Her brain — she understands things way ahead of her age.”
There’s been no need for Lori Anne’s parents to push her — because she’s already way out in front, dragging them along.
She was reading before age 2. She swims four times a week, keeping pace with 10-year-old boys, and wants to be in the Olympics. When Sorina tried to enroll her in a school for the gifted, the headmaster said Lori Anne was just way too smart and should be home-schooled.
So Lori Anne now studies at home, mastering topics other kids her age won’t touch for several years. “She out-argues both of us, and my husband is a trial lawyer,” Sorina laughs.
No one expects Lori Anne to win the bee this year; just getting past the preliminaries would be a stunning development. Veteran spellers spend hours daily over many months to master as much of the unabridged dictionary as possible.
Lori Anne? She likes to study while jumping on a trampoline, with Sorina calling out words.
“She doesn’t sit at a table for hours to study anything. I mean, she’s 6,” Sorina says with laugh. “She’s still a 6-year-old — and we want to allow her to be a 6-year-old.”