I have always struggled with getting my 3-year-old daughter to grasp Arabic. But after only a few minutes into watching her use Lamsa on my iPhone, I found myself vowing to go out and buy my family an iPad, something I have avoided doing for years.
With its vibrant colours, user-friendly interface and a genuinely fun approach that does not preach or spoon-feed information, the app is interactive and entertaining to use.
Because of the partnership with Iftah Ya Simsim, the Arabic version of Sesame Street that relaunched in the region last year, Elmo, Grover and their friends feature in the app, in addition to the Lamsa mascots. The muppets caught my daughter's interest, and after some exploring she soon stumbled on a game that used vegetables and fruits to count from 1 to 10.
Less than 15 minutes after she had played with that particular page over and over again, she handed me back the iPhone and asked me to listen. Then she flawlessly counted from 1 to 10 in Arabic. I was flabbergasted, because I had been trying to teach her those numbers for months.
Since then, my daughter has been happy for me to read her stories in Arabic and has stopped asking me to switch to English. The app’s stories section has her hooked, thanks to more than 100 e-books featuring imaginative tales covering everything from animals in the jungle to ancient Arab explorers and scientists.
What I love best is that the app encourages active engagement – my daughter is not just staring, zombie-like, at the screen. The content is grounded in the specific goal of making Arabic fun and interesting, and provides for joint engagement, which means we’re having fun together. We talk about what we learnt from the stories and characters, sing along to the songs composed especially for the app and, most of all, enjoy communicating in Arabic.
Lamsa is free to download. In-app purchases, including games and activities in partnership with Little Thinking Minds, the Arabic counterpart to Baby Einstein and Little Einstein, cost from Dh3.6 to Dh14.6
