Atlanta 10-year-old competes in national spelling bee

ATLANTA — A teenager and a 10-year-old from metro Atlanta are both quarterfinalists in the Scripps National Spelling Bee as they compete against hundreds of spellers across the country.

Fourth-grader Sarv Dharavane, 10, recently received a farewell from his classmates at Austin Elementary School in Dunwoody. According to the competition website, he appears to have advanced to the next round.

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In March, he won the Georgia Association of Educators’ 63rd annual spelling bee.

According to his spelling bio, Sarv enjoys playing outside, spending time with family and friends, and most importantly, reading in his free time.

Before entering the competition, he gave some advice to other students looking to expand their vocabulary.

“Read your books, all the books. And I’m talking to all the kids who are going to watch this,” Dharavane said. “Read your books! If you don’t read books, you’ll never get anywhere.”

The bio adds that the 10-year-old also plays soccer, swims and is a green belt in tae kwon do. Dharavane’s favorite hobbies include playing the piano, solving Rubik’s cubes quickly, computer programming, and building with Legos. He also likes mathematics and English.

Matthew Baber, now 14, entered the spelling bee last year as a seventh grader and finished tied for 57th place. Now, in eighth grade at Rising Starr Middle School in Peachtree City, he’s competing again.

11Alive spoke to him last year and he expressed interest in wanting to compete in this year’s competition again.

Baber previously told 11Alive his strategy for preparing for the spelling bee.

“It’s generally not helpful to just memorize words, because there are hundreds of thousands of words. And the chances of you picking a word out of the dictionary and that being the word they give you are extremely astronomical. You might have a better chance of winning the lottery,” Baber added.

According to Baber’s biography, he was born in Hawaii. Baber also enjoys languages, mathematics, computers, jiu-jitsu, cello, piano and music composition.

He recently wrote his own novel, the biography says.

Baber and Dharavane were sponsored by the Georgia Association of Educators, a Tucker nonprofit that advocates for public school teachers.