DAYTON, Ohio — In today’s world of autocorrect and instant access, learning a new word is just one Google search away.

However, for the 200 students competing in the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee, memorizing a bank of 4,000 words takes a little more effort than just hitting ‘search’.

When it comes to learning new words, for 13-year-old Aurora Spisak, there’s more than one way to study.

The 7th grader at Hadley E. Watts Middle School has a special app, help from her mom, Kristen, her teachers and plenty of dry erase markers.

“It makes a ding sound because that one was a different one, and I would take my marker and write down the correct one three times,” said Aurora.

With the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee right around the corner, every hour of practice is precious.

“It’s exciting because it’s new and it’s something I’ve never even remotely experienced before and at the same time it’s terrifying because this is against the whole country,” she said.

“We’re so proud of her. She loves spelling, and she loves reading. She started reading at a very young age, so I think that’s why she has so much exposure to all these words,” Kristen Spisak said.

Earlier this year Aurora won her class, grade and school spelling bees, then won the Regional Bee at Wright State University. 

“My winning word was ‘Orinoco’. It’s a river in South America,” said Aurora.

“This is really the first time she’s had the opportunity to move up in the ranks along the spelling bees, so she’s doing really well I think,” Kristen said.

Once again, she’ll be wearing special earrings from her archery coach and bringing a very special good luck charm.

“You need a good luck, duck,” said Aurora.

Gilbert, her good luck duck, has been to a lot of places.

“In my pocket. I put my hand in my pocket, held onto Gilbert, and said ‘ok… word,’” she said.

With her eye on the prize, a duck in her pocket, and thousands of words in her memory bank, Aurora is ready.

When she’s not practicing her spelling, Aurora is looking forward to Summer and Space Camp.

“I’d like to be an astronaut when I grow up because it’s such an amazing world I should say, even though it’s not a world, it’s space… There’s so many things that we don’t know,” she said.

Space might be the unknown, but learning how to spell new words is something that feels like home.

The Spelling Bee will be held near Washington, D.C. from May 28th to the 30th.