Louisiana middle school student ready to compete in Scripps National Spelling Bee

BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — A middle school student in Baton Rouge is taking part in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

12-year-old Naqeeb Mohammad Hossain just finished 6th grade at Glasgow Middle School and now he will take part in the National Spelling Bee.

Hossain will join other spellers beginning on Tuesday, May 27 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.

The local middle school student earned his way into the competition which happens over three days.

Hossain made it to the Scripps National Spelling Bee by winning the school spelling bee at Glasgow Middle School and then the regional spelling bee at the LSU Laboratory School.

This is Hossain’s first trip to the National Spelling Bee and he can’t wait to compete.

He said that his “dad is more nervous than me.”

The impending 7th grader is gearing up for the competition. He said getting ready included “using the 2025 Scripps Words of the Champions and Merriam-Webster Unabridged dictionary to prepare for the spelling and vocabulary rounds.”

His father, Dr. Mohammad Zahid Hossain, said he is proud of what his son has accomplished so far.

“I cannot spell all the words that he can spell,” he said.

According to Hossain’s father, English was Naqeeb’s second language. He said his son had “to go through ELPT or the English Language Proficiency Test.”

While doing so, his son gained a love for phonetics and became curious about spelling. Dr. Hossain said that along with hard work led him to Louisiana.

Details on how to watch the Scripps National Spelling Bee can be found here.