New iPad App – Gurmukhi Phonics teaches Gurmukhi Phonetically
I learned the panti (Gurmukhi alphabet) as a teenager and I remember that it was a tough ordeal. Now, I teach it at Punjabi school myself. And I can see the same frustration in the eyes of some kids – sitting in those chairs, memorizing line after line is hard and tiring. And after a certain age, who has the time?
“There has to be a better way of teaching this.” I thought to myself.
My old paradigm of learning Gurmukhi seems foreign to the kids of today. Letter-by-letter learning just doesn’t work.
So I grabbed my iPad and went to the appstore. Lo’ and behold’ I saw some light.
I downloaded the new “Gurmukhi Phonics” app by Sikhi Apps for the iPad and took it for a test drive. I was impressed. Someone was finally thinking about the teaching our kids in a way that may made sense to them – phonetically. That is the way our kids learn today in school. So why not teach them Gurmukhi phonetically.
I found that the step by step phonetic prompts and tracing in the app DO make it easier to learn the letters when compared to just staring at a line and memorizing the letters. The little children and their “yea” and “awww…” prompts are both cute and positively reinforcing for kids. And is that banjo music in the background? Nice touch. The app is interactive, prompting the child to listen and then write each letter. This is followed by phonetic letter recognition, reinforced by showing children pictures.
The app also seems to be intelligent enough to understand if a child is tracing the letters correctly and assigns star values for every letter. Children cannot move forward to the next 5 letters until they have fully mastered the previous 5, thereby pacing and focusing the children.
The app gives parents the option of both Gurmuhi and Punjabi words and an adult and child prompter through an easy to navigate settings menu. I liked the app a lot. I was able to try the app for free and I personally upgraded to get the full version (from within the app). It was well worth the small $3.99 investment.
And I wouldn't limit the app to kids. I think the app is just the thing that will finally help my father in law (who is in his 60s and wants to learn Punjabi) easily learn the language at his own pace but in an interactive and engaging way.
Really, everyone who wants to learn Gurmukhi/Punjabi should download the app and give it a try. We sit on our iPad every evening anyway! Might as well teach our kids (or ourselves) Gurmukhi.
Click here to download the app today.
Harleen Kaur (Los Angeles)