I often hear parents despair that children don’t read enough nowadays, given all the other distractions in kids’ lives.
Playing devil’s advocate, I once asked a friend why it mattered. She responded, slightly annoyed, that she was worried her children wouldn’t learn enough vocabulary.
This is not a problem for Jacky Qiao, a 7th grade student at BISS who recently reached the final round of China’s first national English spelling bee. He went on to beat 5,000 other contestants, standing in front of a room full of strangers and winning the bee with the triumphant spelling of the word heliolatry (worship of the sun). His victory has already been described as a “monumental achievement”.
Jacky’s next stop is Washington D.C. to compete as China’s first contestant in the Scripps National Spelling Bee on the 29th of May. No matter the outcome, Jacky deserves congratulations and should remember that he is already a winner.
