Burr Fifth-Grader's Spelling is Letter Perfect

Vivian Petrecca, the Burr Elementary School fifth-grader who won the townwide Spelling Bee this week, attributes the victory to her love of reading.

"I practiced a lot, but one of the things that really gave me an advantage here was that I read a lot, and, even though I never really excelled at spelling, I absorbed the words because I see a lot of them in my reading," Vivian, 11, said in an interview Friday morning at her school.

Vivian isn't partial to a particular genre when it comes to reading - her interests run the gamut. "I like all kinds of literature, I don't really have a favorite. I'll read just about anything you put in front of me," she said.

Heather Petrecca, Vivian's mom, agreed that her daughter's understanding of words comes from her love of reading. "It's just years of exposure to literature really has created a nice vocabulary for her," she said.

The final word Vivian had to spell to win the townwide Spelling Bee - hallucination - wasn't the hardest word she encountered. She said "inundate" was the toughest of about a dozen words she had to spell because she hadn't seen it before. "It was new to me. I hadn't seen it so I didn't know how it was spelled. I pretty much guessed on the word," she said.

The rules of the Spelling Bee said the 41 fifth-graders had to say the word, spell it, and then say it again. Their answer wouldn't be complete until they said the word after spelling it, so that enabled the students to change their minds about how a word was spelled, Vivian said.

"I started off 'inundate' really wrong, and a few others I had too," she said.

Vivian was the 15th student to go up in every round, and she said that allowed her to hear how hard words were, but she still didn't know what word she would get. She said she was happy she wasn't asked to spell 'precinct,' which was a word her classmate, Ben Walker, who finished third, received.

"I do remember, a couple of times, I was like, 'Oh, gosh. If there are words that hard...I could completely get out on it," she said.

As the rounds continued in the two-hour competition, Vivian said she became a little nervous realizing her opportunity to win became larger. "I was pretty nervous. This was really big for me, and sometimes I really thought I had a chance at winning, and that made me all the more excited and nervous," she said.

Tuesday night's townwide Spelling Bee in Roger Ludlowe Middle School, which consisted of classroom winners from Fairfield's fifth grades, was the first spelling bee Vivian entered, though she did have to win three qualifying rounds in her elementary school class to make it to the townwide bee.

Vivian said she practiced a lot with her dad because it's easier for her to learn how to spell a word if she's asked to spell it. "It's easier than looking at each one and trying to memorize it," she said.

By winning the townwide Spelling Bee, Vivian won a $250 U.S. Savings Bond and earned the right to compete in a state Spelling Bee in Wallingford on May 14. Finn Schnelle, who finished second, also earned the right to compete in the Connecticut State Spelling Bee.

Vivian said she didn't know how she would do in the state competition. "There could be two fifth-grade spelling phenoms out there," she said. "I am excited, and I'll try to give it my best shot."

Heather Petrecca said she was "very proud of Vivian's accomplishment."

"I'm very proud of Vivian, period," she added.

Heather Petrecca said all the fifth-graders at the townwide bee seemed poised and used to being in front of an audience, which she attributed to their having to make presentations in their classrooms.

The 30th annual townwide Spelling Bee on Tuesday night was sponsored by the Junior Women's Club of Fairfield.