Ad-free Akuru Fili brings Thaana letters and numbers to young children's screens
Roam Dhuniye's free Akuru Fili app uses games and stories to teach Thaana letters, words and numbers to young children, and carries no ads, subscriptions or accounts, according to its website.
Akuru Fili, a free app for young children, relies on games and illustrated stories to teach Dhivehi letters, words and numbers, and does so without advertising, subscriptions or user accounts.
The app's website and Ibrahim Afrah's Facebook profile identify the developer as Roam Dhuniye, a business he owns, which created it as a community service. The developer says there will be no charge in future either.
Sixteen activities
The website describes 16 activities, among them:
- illustrated stories
- Thaana letters and fili
- word finding and word building
- counting, addition and subtraction
- colours and memory-matching games
- finger-tracing of letters
- sentence completion
- picture puzzles
Controls for parents
A question intended for adults guards the parents' menu. Inside, a parent can:
- give each child a profile with an avatar and a star tally
- set a separate daily screen-time cap per child
- make recordings of themselves pronouncing every letter
- narrate the stories, with up to 30 seconds of recording per page
The child then hears those recordings during the stories and letter games, and can turn the narration off or back on.
Data and privacy
Under its privacy policy, the mobile version gathers no personal data and runs no analytics. Names, stars and recordings are stored on the device itself and never uploaded.
The browser version also keeps that data locally, but counts visitors through Google Analytics. According to the policy, children's names, stars and recordings are never passed to the analytics service.
Akuru Fili runs in a browser at akurufili.com; Android users can install it from Google Play, and iPhone and iPad owners can try a beta through Apple's TestFlight. Once its content has been downloaded, it can be used without a connection, the developer says. He invites feedback via WhatsApp on +960 796-8676.
