The joy of Deepika, a class V student of Government Primary School, Anjaiahnagar near Hi-tech City, knew no bounds on Wednesday. This 10-year-old student from Telugu medium won the first prize at the ‘Learnasium Open Vocab Contest 2012-13.’
Organised by The Atlanta Foundation, the contest tests the English language vocabulary of students.
Over 2,000 students from 25 government and private schools participated in the contest where students from government schools were pitted against those from private schools in various levels from March 2012.
In the first round, the students had to guess a word and complete a sentence. In the second round the contestants had to unscramble jumbled letters and find the hidden word and in the third round the students had to spell out a word correctly.
Deepika scored 60 points followed by Preeti Patel of Howard Public School who scored 50 points. Mehak Jain of Howard Public School and Swapna of Government Primary School, Gachibowli, stood at the third place with 40 points each.
Hailing from a remote village in Nalgonda district, Deepika had to struggle hard to come on the top. Everyday the students of the participating schools were taught English vocabulary on the Lernasium software developed to improve their word power.
“Initially it was difficult for me to learn words but trainers from Atlanta Foundation and our teachers encouraged me to develop my vocabulary,” says Deepika, whose mother works in a canteen and has brought her up after her father deserted the family.
Deepika’s achievement also helped her family as she received a cash prize of Rs. 30,000 along with a trophy. Asked how she would spend the money, she replied innocently, “My mother will decide about it.”
