(NewsNation) — Faizan Zaki, a seventh-grader from Allen, Texas, won the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee.
He shared that he visualizes typing words on a keyboard to help him spell them. Zaki said his dream of becoming a spelling bee champion began back in first grade.
He ousted eight other accomplished spellers to win the title on Thursday night, including two whom he let back into the competition after his own careless flub.
Told to take a deep breath before his final word, “éclaircissement,” he didn’t ask a single question before spelling it correctly. He pumped his fists and collapsed to the stage after saying the final letter.
Zaki told “Morning in America” Friday that he visualizes typing words on a keyboard to help him spell them.
“When I’m up there and I’m spelling the word, those hand movements that I’m doing … I’m pretending to type out the word on a keyboard,” he explained. “For éclaircissement, you were able to see me typing out each letter as I said them.”
The 13-year-old from Allen, Texas, was runner-up last year after he lost in a lightning-round tiebreaker. While he was frustrated, he didn’t give up and underwent an extensive routine to train for the spelling bee.
“Every day when I get home from school, I open a dictionary and I open a Google Doc and I just write down words that I haven’t seen before or words that I don’t recognize,” he said. “I do this for five to six hours on weekdays and seven to eight hours on weekends.”
Zaki said his dream of becoming a spelling bee champion began back in first grade after he saw Karthik Nemmani win the spelling bee in 2018.
“I got really interested. So the next year, when I was in first grade, I participated in the spelling bee and I instantly got hooked,” he said. “I knew it was something that I could pursue and now I’m here, I won.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.