Sinhala Kids Stories & Rhymes

What is “Sinhala Kids Stories & Rhymes”?

Do you remember the Sinhala “surangana katha” (fairytales) and “lama gee” (children’s songs) you were told as a child? Do you wish you could tell them all to your child but you just haven’t got the time? That’s why you should use the “Sinhala Kids Stories & Rhymes”!

This is an amazing Youtube channel for children which can give them the ultimate experience of watching and listening to all the Sinhala stories and rhymes. With the careful use of language and creative dubbing, it has become extremely popular among many children - for 127 videos, it has 296K subscribers, with 128,547,023 views.

Why DO we like it?

Using Youtube videos to keep your child occupied while getting them to eat has become an increasingly popular method used by parents.

But are you concerned that the content and language used by different channels may have a negative effect on your child?

That is a fair concern because as Fromkin says, children below the age of 5 years become aware of the rules of language by what they hear around them. Therefore it is only natural that children pick up alarming language by watching videos on their parents’ phones. According to research, parents should engage with their child’s online activities. Having prior knowledge on whatever content you let your child watch is important. For example, we could effectively engage in something that every Sri Lankan is familiar with: story-telling and songs in Sinhala.

Why do we LOVE it?

• Sinhala Kids Stories & Rhymes is a Youtube channel that brings stories and nursery rhymes for your child with a precise and simplified usage of the Sinhala language. This promotes positive cognitive behaviorism in the children, especially with regard to phonology.

• The visuals and the sounds in these videos are not violent nor are they too vivid, which in turn will not be too stressful for them.

• The interesting content will keep them engaged in listening to meaningful conversation and enjoyable rhymes that have moral lessons. Watching these videos will help your child in the process of interacting with others in a positive manner because all the conversations that happen between the characters in these videos follow polite mannerisms. The usage of words like “karunakarala” (please) and “mata samawenna” (I’m sorry/please forgive me) are used constantly and hearing these conversations will encourage your child to be polite and accurate given the circumstances.

• Moreover, as these videos do not contain only children’s stories which are originally Sri Lankan but also include translated stories from different countries, your child is exposed to different cultures where they can learn an array of new words (for example, names of food, countries, animals, etc.)

• In addition, if their first language is not Sinhala and if they are already familiar with a number of words in their own native tongue, this would be a great platform to learn the translated Sinhala words for them.

• For the parent, it is easier to quickly scan if the content is suitable for children by reading the titles, because the majority of Sri Lankan parents know these stories from their own childhood. The titles of the stories are labeled in such a way that you can read the title in Sinhala, in Sinhala transliterated in English and in English. The rhymes follow a different order where titles are first given in Sinhala transcribed in English and then in Sinhala letters; however, the English translation is not given.

Are there any drawbacks?

A drawback we see in these videos is in the design of the layout of the videos. There are many errors in the usage of Sinhala letters when labelling the titles. For a child who is starting to read, orthography is extremely important. There is a chance that they would perceive these spellings to be correct and it might lead to a problem for the parents when it comes to the error-correcting process.

Overall review

The purpose of these videos are to create a platform for parents who want their children to listen to stories and rhymes in Sinhala to help their language development. This channel could be extremely helpful because it progressively assures that these videos help the children in the process of socialization using the Sinhala language. This is an ideal channel for a Sri Lankan parent who wants their child to develop language using a safe linguistic environment and also wants to use Youtube as a gateway.

Specs

The channel Sinhala Kids Stories & Rhymes is available on Youtube and is only responsible for the content shown on this channel. It is NOT responsible for any other content nor advertisements on the Youtube App.

Origin – Sri Lanka

Joined date - Feb 9, 2016

Devices it could be used on – Any device that has the ability to download the Youtube App.