A six-year-old girl will become the youngest ever contestant in a US National Spelling Bee when she competes this week.
Lori Anne Madison entered her first competition at the tender age of three and doesn't look set to stop anytime soon. The home-schooled pupil has already decided she wants to be astrobiologist - a combination of her two favourite subjects - astronomy and biology.
Madison, who often studies while swinging upside down or jumping on her trampoline, has captivated national media after winning her county's spelling bee in Virginia last May but says she didn't expect to attract so much attention.
"I sort of didn't like it. I asked for no interviews but the media seems to be disobeying me," she told the Associated Press.
The child genius, who will be battling 277 contestants for the spelling bee prize, was fluently reading by the time she was two years old and says her favourite word is "sprachgefuhl" (yes, we had to Google it too).
But Madison's mum Sorina says her daughter doesn't sit down and study for hours. "I mean, she's six. She's still a 6-year-old and we want to allow her to be a six-year-old."
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