Saudi mom designs language tool for kids

Pacca’s Carousel is a mobile and tablet educational language app that combines pre-school play with multi-lingual learning content, introducing charming activities in a choice of five languages for children age 2-6 years. The app was designed by a Saudi mother who was facing trouble teaching Arabic to her children. Looking into the market, she could not find the perfect app, so she designed her own tool to help herself and other mothers.
Sarah Faisal Al-Saud, founder of app creators Anamil Tech, who holds a Ph.D. in Human-computer Interaction, has worked with SMACK, a digital creative agency, to design and develop Pacca’s Carousel.
“I wanted an app for my kids that was fun, age appropriate and safe, which supported language learning to provide an interactive experience in Arabic. I was unable to find one that was engaging and fun for children, which is why I decided to use my background in technology to develop my own educational app for children in Arabic and other languages,” Al-Saud told Arab News.
The app is focused on developing kids’ vocabulary in an engaging way. It does not focus on grammar.
The app uses words from everyday life such as colors, animals, food, and transport. These words are available in any of the five languages they support (Formal Arabic, English, French, Spanish and Cantonese). The parents have the ability to choose the language of their preference.
Al-Saud said, “We have incorporated different languages and activities of self-study books to a certain extent. Our tool also offers activities such as matching, counting, sorting objects in order.
“In the final phase of designing the app, I gave it to five mothers and asked them to use it with their children at home and report back any problems, issues and comments.”
She said they used the outcome of these studies and made some changes to the design.
Pacca’s Carouse has been recently awarded the “Mum’s Love Award” from Babyworld magazine.
“We are now introducing the app to local schools and nurseries in the Kingdom and the Gulf region,” she said.
Pacca’s Carousel is available to download from the App Store, Google Play and the Kurio Store.