Sacramento spelling bee prodigy places 22nd in the nation. What’s next for this teen?

While most children were still learning how to spell their own names at 6, Nithika Rangan was already winning spelling bees.

Born to Tamil parents, Rangan excelled in many areas at a young age.

Her journey to the Scripps National Spelling Bee started in first grade, when her teacher, Stephen Davis, encouraged her mom to enroll her in local competitions after she displayed a natural talent for spelling and language.

From there, the path was set. Rangan, 14, continued to compete for the next seven years, culminating in an attempt to win this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Rangan’s interest in spelling stemmed from the “thrill of the competition.” She eventually developed a love of “different languages, different root words, and the origin behind the formation of the word,” she said.

Supported by her parents, Rangan balanced her spelling bee practice with other activities such as singing, swimming, dancing and learning French. Though the practices took two or three hours a day while she prepped for a competition, she still managed to end her final year in middle school as her class valedictorian.

Her parents said they were even surprised when she told them, not expecting her to finish at the top of her class given the incredibly packed schedule she had these last few months of school.

Rangan’s mother, Sandiya Subramaniam, acted as her coach throughout this seven-year-long adventure, and enforced a disciplined daily schedule. While Subramaniam has no formal training in spelling and grammar, she’s picked up expert strategies from over the years of supporting her daughter.

Rangan’s studying techniques included learning the root words of each word in the study list given so that it can help her to piece together the spelling. “In case I don’t know the word, I can use root words to help piece together the unknown,” she said.

This technique, unfortunately, was not helpful with the fateful word: tennantite. The word ended her run in the competition. According to Rangan and her mother, tennantite is an eponym, meaning it is a word based on a name. For that reason, it doesn’t follow the rules of root words.

While Rangan additionally uses memorization as a strategy when practicing, she reads the study list like a storybook rather than relying solely on memorization. She dissects each word and learns the bits and pieces so that she truly understands the whole rather than just the part.

In theory, this seems simple, but Rangan had to repeat this process for the list of 4,000 words given to the regional and national spelling bee contestants. In addition, judges were not confined to that list and often pulled from the Merriam Webster dictionary.

The path to nationals

To get as far as she did this year — she placed 22nd in the nation last week — Rangan endured a rigorous selection process that included a school bee, an online qualifier test, another in-person competition, a regional spelling bee and finally from there, advancing to the national spelling bee hosted in Maryland.

Since Rangan has been competing since the first grade, this process was nothing new, but this year’s spelling bee was the first time since 2021 that she had a sponsorship.

Prior to 2021, the regional spelling bee was sponsored by The Sacramento Bee. When that sponsorship ended, Scripps took over and combined a majority of the different Northern California counties into one region as opposed to continuing the practice of having a spelling bee contestant representative from each of the regions.

According to her parents, this combination of the Greater Sacramento region with the Bay Area regions made advancing more difficult for Rangan since she was competing against a higher caliber of contestants with only one sponsored nationals spot available.

However, this year a new organization stepped up to sponsor the winner. The Terrell Christopher Gladney Memorial Academy, or TCG, filled up the gap and helped to restore the regional spelling bee to the local regions it was before.

After Rangan won the regional spelling bee, some of her travel to Maryland and lodgings were paid for with the help of founder Terrence Gladney.

“When TCG stepped forward to fill that gap, it just opened up the door for her,” father Naveen Rangan said.

The support didn’t end there, Rangan added that her sponsor, Gladney was cheering her on at the nationals as well.

While the competing aspect of the spelling bee did end for Rangan on May 29 when she misspelled tennantite, Rangan still sees spelling and language as a big part of her future.

“When she came down from the stage, she was feeling bad not from losing, but because the spelling bee experience was over,” said Subramaniam.

“I didn’t want it to end, but I knew it had to at some point. So it’s kind of going to be weird to readjust and have new priorities,” Rangan said.

What’s next?

At age 14 Rangan is old enough to be a pronouncer and coach at elementary school spelling bees. There is a chance though that Rangan might take a break from root words, etymology and vocabulary and focus on the other things she finds fun.

While her other hobbies were pushed to the side when she was in competition mode, Rangan now has the free time to fill up her week with other activities. Singing lessons on Tuesday and dance lessons on the weekend will now take up her focus.

When not competing in bees, Rangan would perform the national anthem at local sporting events at least every few months according to her mother.

Rangan additionally has been learning French since she was in first grade — that grade was a busy year for her — and recently won a gold medal in the National French Contest.

On the more artistic side, Rangan dances bharatanatyam, a traditional dance from the Tamil region in India that’s known for its complex footwork, facial expressions and storytelling capabilities.

This motivation to always be learning is a trait honed by Rangan’s parents. During competitions, her mother said she would always tell Rangan, “Winning is not alone, it’s about learning.”

Her father would encourage her to not look at the competition from a winning perspective, but a learning perspective.

Since there is only one trophy and one winner, her parents wanted her to always leave the bee with something, even if it wasn’t the trophy.

Although this phase of her life is over, Rangan says “I have to thank my parents for supporting me too. It’s not only me, because when I wasn’t really interested, they motivated me to do that.”

Even if she’s not competing in a spelling bee anymore, Rangan believes that “words are all around us.”

Rest assured that words will be involved in whatever she does from here on out whether it’s singing, French, coding or another hobby she will undoubtedly excel at.

This story was originally published June 5, 2024 at 5:00 AM.