Free Akuru Fili app teaches young children Dhivehi through games

Akuru Fili, a free learning app, uses games and illustrated stories to help young children learn Dhivehi letters, words and numbers.

Roam Dhuniye, a business owned by Ibrahim Afrah, built the app as a community service, according to the app's website and his Facebook profile. There are no ads, subscriptions or accounts, and the developer says it will remain free.

Sixteen activities

The website lists 16 activities. Among them:

• Thaana letters and fili
• word finding and word building
• counting, addition and subtraction
• colours and memory matching games
• finger tracing of letters
• sentence completion and picture puzzles
• illustrated stories

Parents' section

Parents reach their own menu by answering a question meant for adults. There they can:

• create a profile for each child, with an avatar and a star count
• set a daily screen-time limit per child
• record themselves pronouncing each letter
• record story narration, up to 30 seconds per page

These recordings are then played to the child during letter games and stories, and the child can switch the narration on or off.

What happens to children's data

According to its privacy policy, the mobile app gathers no personal information and runs no analytics. Names, stars and recordings are kept on the device and never uploaded.

The web version stores the same data locally but uses Google Analytics to count visitors. The policy states that children's names, stars and recordings are never sent to analytics.

Where to download

• Web: akurufili.com
• Android: Google Play
• iPhone and iPad: beta via Apple's TestFlight

Once its content has downloaded, the app can be used offline, the developer says. Feedback is welcome on WhatsApp at +960 796-8676.