Parent & teacher guide

Everything you need to sit down with a child and start. Ten minutes of reading, and you will know what every part of the app is for.

Start here

Ten to fifteen minutes is a good session at this age. The app is built for short visits, and it always remembers where you stopped.

The first two minutes

• Create a profile with your child's name. You can add more than one child.
• The app will ask which words your family uses for aunt, grandmother and so on. Answer these with your child; it makes every later screen say your family's words.
• In Settings, decide whether you want English subtitles and pronunciation in Latin letters. Both are off by default. Turn them on if you do not read Bengali script.

What each part teaches

Where	What it is for	When to use it
কথা বলা Communicating	37 illustrated storybooks, each with its own words, a sentence pattern to say out loud, and a short check at the end.	First, and always. This is the spine of the app.
স্বরপুর Vowel Village	The eleven vowels, one house each, in three visits: meet the letter, hear and write it, then use it in words.	Once your child enjoys the stories.
ব্যঞ্জনপুর Consonant Town	39 consonants and signs in nine neighborhoods, grouped by how the mouth makes the sound.	After two vowel houses are done.
সংখ্যাপুর Counting River	Every number ০ to ১০০, and which counting word Bengali uses for things, people and flat things.	Any time. It stands on its own.
পড়া Reading	The whole library, with narration, tap-any-word, and a record-yourself mode.	Bedtime. This is the one to do together.
খেলা Play	Ludo with Bengali numbers, Bangla Solitaire, and a word-building game.	When attention is short. Real practice, disguised.

Reading a book together

• আমি পড়ি · Read to me narrates the whole book, turning pages by itself. Good for a first pass or a tired evening.
• Tap any word to hear just that word. This is the single most useful thing on the page. Let your child tap freely.
• আমার পালা · My turn lets your child record the page and play it back next to the app's voice.
• Each book ends with one question about the story and a small set of its words to practice.

What the progress page means

We were careful to make অগ্রগতি mean something, so it is worth knowing exactly what it claims.

You see	It means
A letter with stars	Your child answered questions about it correctly. Stars are never given for tapping through, and a star once earned is never taken away.
শিখছি · Learning	Met, and in the review rotation.
জানে · Known	Answered correctly on separate days, spread over at least a week. This is a real claim, not a participation badge.
দক্ষ · Mastered	Held over a longer stretch still.
A streak	Days in a row with any activity. It is meant to be gentle; missing a day costs nothing but the number.

Words come back for review days after they are first met, not immediately. That gap is deliberate and it is where the learning actually happens, so a word reappearing is the system working rather than your child forgetting.

Settings worth knowing

• English subtitles. Puts English under the stories and instructions. The letters, sounds and answers stay Bengali.
• Sound out Bengali words. Shows pronunciation in Latin letters on the speaking screens. A capital T, D or R means curl your tongue back, a sound English has no letter for: bati is a lamp, baTi is a bowl. It never appears on the letters, the tracing or the storybooks, because children read the Latin instead of the Bengali if you let them.
• Your family's words. Change your kinship answers any time.
• Teacher area. Behind a parental gate and a PIN. Shows each child's detail for a classroom.
• Shortcuts. Choose which four sections sit on the bottom bar.

Common questions

My child taps randomly and rushes. Is anything being learned?

Some, and the app is designed so that rushing does not produce a false record. Random tapping earns no stars and no "known" words. If it persists, sit beside them for one book; at this age the adult in the room is most of the method.

I do not read Bengali. Can I still help?

Yes, and this is the case we designed for. Turn on English subtitles and pronunciation. Then your job is not to teach, it is to sit there, tap words with them, and be interested. That is genuinely most of it.

We say খালা, not মাসি.

Tell the app in Settings and it will use yours everywhere. Both are correct; families differ, and the app treats that as a fact rather than an error.

Which Bengali does it teach?

Bangladeshi standard, the Bengali of Dhaka, since that is the community the school serves. Regional and West Bengal variants appear where they are genuinely alternatives rather than mistakes.

Does it need the internet?

Never. The app makes no network connections at all. Everything, including every recording, is already on the device.

Is my child's data safe?

There is no data to be unsafe. No accounts, no analytics, nothing transmitted. Progress lives on your device and is deleted with the app. See the privacy policy.

How long until my child can read Bangla?

Honestly: this app will take a child a long way into recognizing letters, hearing the sounds, and understanding a lot of spoken Bangla. Fluent independent reading needs more practice with connected text than any app provides, and it needs a grown-up reading with them. Treat Bornomala as the thing that makes that reading possible and enjoyable, not as a replacement for it.

For teachers

• Add one profile per child on a shared tablet; progress is kept separately.
• The teacher area, behind the PIN, shows each child's letters, words and books.
• The 37 books are ordered, so a class can move through them together, one a week, with the words and the check at the end as the lesson.
• ব্যঞ্জনপুর's feather, stone and bell work as a real classroom activity away from the tablet. A strip of tissue in front of the mouth shows the puff on খ and ফ; fingers on the throat show the buzz on গ and জ.