वर्णमाला on a phone: learning Hindi letters the playful way

Many of our children are growing up reading English before they read Hindi. They can spell "elephant" but pause at हाथी. Ask a grandparent and you'll hear the worry: "हिन्दी तो आनी चाहिए".

One reason is simple. There are hundreds of fun English learning apps, and very few good ones for Hindi. So KidsZone has a dedicated हिन्दी section, and its first game is Varnamala.

How it works

Varnamala is about the Hindi alphabet, the स्वर (vowels) and व्यंजन (consonants). The game says a letter aloud and your child taps the right one. It's the same "listen and find" idea that works so well for English letters, now in Devanagari.

The screenshot shows the third level, Missing letter. A row of vowels appears, ऐ, ओ, औ, अं, followed by an empty box. Your child has to work out which letter comes next and choose it from इ, अः and आ. The answer is अः, the last of the vowels.

To get it right, a child needs to know the order of the varnamala, not just recognise single letters. That's exactly the kind of understanding that makes reading easier later.

Three levels

• Vowels: अ to अः, the natural place to begin
• Consonants: क onwards, a bigger set
• Missing letter: putting the letters in order, as in the screenshot

There's a Hint button for when your child is unsure, and Start over for a fresh round.

A worksheet for grown-ups

Here's a feature I particularly like. Under the game there's a Print a worksheet option, marked for grown-ups. So after playing on the screen, your child can practise writing the same letters by hand on paper. Tapping a letter and writing it with a pencil use different parts of the brain, and doing both makes the learning much stronger.

Hindi and English, side by side

KidsZone's settings make the whole site friendlier for bilingual homes. You can choose to show game words in English, हिन्दी, or both together. You can also pick the language used for speaking and listening, with English, Hindi and Urdu among the options.

That means a child can play a colours or animals game and see लाल next to red, or हाथी next to elephant. Two languages, one game, no confusion.

More Hindi games are being added to this section, including matras and Hindi number names, which are being carefully checked by Hindi readers before they go live.

A family activity

Ask a grandparent to sit with your child for a round of Varnamala, then print the worksheet and do it together. Grandparents often know little rhymes for the letters, and those stick far longer than any app.

Learning a second script early is a gift. Children who read both Devanagari and English letters find it easier to pick up other languages later, and they stay connected to the stories, songs and family conversations that happen in Hindi.

Play Varnamala on KidsZone.