Khalsa School spelling bee champions Mehar Kaur Sahota (left) and Prabhleen Kaur Sandhu.
SURREY – Khalsa School student Prabhleen Kaur Sandhu placed third in the national spelling bee contest held in Toronto recently even though competing on the national stage was extremely nerve-wracking for her.
“I was so nervous, but I really wanted a medal,” the Grade 6 student told the Leader newspaper. “I was turning red and blue and all colours.”
Sandhu, 12, and her classmates Mehar Kaur Sahota and Harshvir Singh Shergill were in Toronto May 1 facing off against the best spellers in the country at the 28th-annual Spelling Bee of Canada competition.
And for all three, the competition was extremely competitive.
After four rounds of words in the 12- to 14-year-old intermediate category, Sandhu had proven she belonged, not missing a single word.
Then came the word “reassured,” and she nailed it, but for the next competitor, “Leucine” was not so easy and that word eventually eliminated many of the students from the competition.
With only a few competitors left, a young boy in front of Sandhu was asked to spell the word “Astroturf.” Although he spelled the word correctly, he was not given credit. Sandhu then asked the judges, “is that a proper noun?” meaning it needed a capital “A.” She spelled the word again with the upper-case letter and her competitor was eliminated.
Asking a clarification question is a strategy the Khalsa School spelling club coaches – Kylie Morrison and Harbax Kaur Jaswal – had drilled into their students.
“We play a lot of spelling games in the club,” said Morrison. “It’s not overnight, it’s years of hard work. They have all worked so hard, it really comes down to them and all the practicing they do.”
Sandhu eventually misspelled “becquerel,” however she would spell the word “cartouche” correctly to win third place, $1,000 and a trophy.
Courtesy The Surrey Leader newspaper
