Sixth grader wins Philadelphia regional spelling bee, heads to Scripps national competition

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Jayden Jiang, a sixth grader at Girard Academic Music Program, won the WHYY-Billy Penn Regional Philadelphia Spelling Bee on Saturday.

Jiang bested more than 40 students at WHYY headquarters in Philadelphia to take home the regional title for the third year in a row. He correctly spelled “merino,” followed by “mochi,” to win the contest.

WHYY will send Jiang, together with South Jersey Regional Spelling Bee champion Isaac Geremew, on an all-expenses-paid trip at the end of May to Washington, D.C., for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Jiang said winning the regional competition this year is “mindblowing.” He’s looking forward to heading into the national competition with more experience, he said.

“I won’t be as nervous as I was on the first time I went to the stage, but still, I’ll be very nervous,” he said. “ It’s like 100 times the size of the crowd at nationals.”

All students participating in Saturday’s bee were champions of their middle and elementary school competitions. Award-winning journalist Tracey Matisak hosted the event.

Runner-up Vidur Diwakar, 13, a seventh-grader at Julia R. Masterman Middle High School, congratulated Jiang.

“I’m proud of myself, and I think I did a good job, but also kudos to Jayden,” he said. “He did better than me. He really outspelled me.”

Jiang said one of his favorite parts of spelling is learning the origins of words.

“There’s always a set pattern in most words, but some of them, they’re completely random,” he said.

Diwakar said he likes how learning words while studying for spelling competitions can be helpful when least expected.

“I’ve read a lot, and a lot of times there’s this just completely random word off the top of my head, that I’ve read in some book, like, a couple years ago,” he said. “And it comes up, and I’m like, ‘Finally, it’s useful.’”

Jiang said his favorite word he’s learned to spell is “juxtaposition,” while Diwakar’s top word is “affiche.”

The Scripps National Spelling Bee was launched more than a century ago by nine newspapers to promote literacy. In 2025, 243 students from across the country participated in the final competition.

Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged dictionary is the official dictionary of the Scripps contest. For more than 50 years, the Scripps National Spelling Bee and publisher Merriam-Webster have together chosen the words used in the competition.