Lingokids - English for Kids

by Theruni Liyanage

Lingokids - More than just another touch-to-play game

With the breaking up of our traditional extended families and our increasingly busy lifestyles, parents are becoming increasingly dependent on various technological interventions to keep children engaged and provide them with the stimulation that growing young minds need. Learning apps are the next ‘it’ thing on the market for parents who don’t fancy leaving children mindlessly staring at the YouTube playlists that various channels offer or the TV programming that our channels squeeze in between advertisements.

While the apps available are many, and there are even some developed by Sri Lankan developers and marketed as being aligned to ‘local contexts’, few apps are well developed enough to truly cater to the developing needs of young children. The cultural context that local apps provide are mostly limited to theme music from popular children’s songs in Sinhala and ‘local’ character designs that are familiar to children who have already been exposed to them.

Lingokids is an exceptional app on the market - if you don’t mind that it’s an English-language app. For those of us that are anxious to make sure that children pick up a good grounding in English as early as possible - and English is a must nowadays - the app is a fantastic start to learning English. Parents who are concerned about what ‘kind’ of English that their children will be picking up will probably be pleased to know that the activities and games are based on the Oxford University Press reading and writing curricula for children.

Lingokids caters to children up to six years of age, and the increased exposure to the language will help them pick up English as naturally and as easily as if it was the language they were exposed to at home (find out why exposure is important here). The mini-games with their problem-solving elements will stimulate their language development in terms of comprehension skills and the app will also take children through video lessons that will help them in learning vocabularies related to diverse subjects from ‘Objects in the Kitchen’ to ‘Exploring Outer Space’, based on the lesson levels the child unlocks by playing. This will ensure that children pick up words with an awareness of the contexts they are used in, as opposed to just being taught ‘big words’ and using them inappropriately (read more on app based learning for toddlers).

Lingokids features a series of mini-games with recurring game characters; the colours are fresh and character designs varied and interesting, providing for an immersive experience for your child each time they use it. Perhaps the most important part of the app for parents, however, is the number of ways in which the app provides age-appropriate content . You can enter your child’s age right down to the exact month and the app provides your child with content that is appropriate for their age, while the curated content keeps pace with their cognitive development as they grow.

The app even replaces the monotone automated voices we sometimes hear in other apps with the cheerful voice of a voice actor who talks your child through the games, praises their achievements and sympathizes with in-game mishaps. This will make sure that your child picks up a good grounding in English and teach them to say please and thank you in the process!

The major drawback of Lingokids is that a lot of its content has to be paid for to be unlocked. If you don’t want to pay, you’re limited to a cap on the number of daily activities the child is allowed to access, which is a disruption of what is meant to be a continuous learning process. However, the app even includes a community platform for parents on which they can interact and have access to informative articles on parenting (read their blog here!) such as pieces on how talking with your child regularly and constantly helps develop communication skills like picking up on social cues (how?). All these resources have been optimized to ensure that your child has the best resources when it comes to learning the English language and developing communication skills in general.

Overall review:

- an excellent app for young children to pick up English and communicative skills in general, if you don’t mind paying the price for the content.