Nine Florida students are competing in the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee this week. 

Eighth grader Dev Shah from Largo, Florida, has reached the nationals for a third time. He was also a speller in the 2019 and 2021 competitions. 

During the preliminaries Tuesday morning, Shah correctly spelled "ardoise" and answered the word meaning question for "grotesqueness."

"I go through like individual word lists, and to prepare for the chance of getting a word I don't know, I would study roots and language patterns so I can still get a word right even if I don't know it," he said. 

Fellow 8th grader Evander Turner from the Orlando area also advanced Thursday morning on the words "darmstadtium" and "syndicate." This is Turner's first National Spelling Bee, but something he's been training for for years.

"Back in 3rd grade, we had a class spelling bee, and I saw the words, and I was like, 'Hey, wait, I know these words,' so I decided to do it," he said. "I won, I went on to the school bee, and I won that after me and a sixth grader exhausted the whole list. So that was when I figured out that I was good at spelling."

The Bee's executive director Corrie Loeffler says she hopes the competition helps change the way students see themselves and their future possibilities.

"My favorite part about the competition is really seeing all the kids come alive onstage, whether they spell correctly or misspell, they've had this life-changing experience of competing at a national level at such a young age," she said.

The last time a Florida student won the Scripps National Spelling Bee was in 1999. 

The finals will be held on Thursday night.