Looking at all the beautifully illustrated, high-quality English alphabet books in the stores, have you ever wondered

“Oh! I wish there was a similar quality Bangla alphabet book for my child!”

If you did, you are not alone. I also searched quite a bit for a beautiful Bangla alphabet board book suitable for kids but didn’t find many options. That led me to decide, “What if I design one?”; not only for my children but also for all the parents who would love to give a quality Bangla alphabet book to their kids. That kind of started the journey of Dear Prodigy!

Designing this book was a lot of fun! Putting myself in a kid’s shoes, I tried to imagine what words and objects children interact with regularly. Then I contextualized them with Bengali culture and tradition and illustrated them in a simple yet modern, visually interesting way with rich and vibrant colors. I selected laminated whiteboards for the book’s pages so that they can withstand all of your child’s experiments Also, the book is wrapped with a hardcover with rounded corners to avoid any injury. So, the main features of the book are-

• A Bengali alphabet board Book that connects Bengali culture, tradition with modern illustrations creating a unique learning experience.
• The words and images for the letters are selected from children’s familiar objects, often contextualizing with Bengali culture. The pages and objects are illustrated with attractive, rich, and vibrant colors.
• A Bilingual (Bangla-English) Book with Bengali and English word meanings and English pronunciations.
• Easy to clean any stain or water. Thick Laminated Whiteboard inner pages and Laminated Hardboard cover.
• Easy for Little Hands to Grasp. Page size 6 inches x 6 inches. Book weighs less than a pound. Rounded corner to avoid injury to your child.

You can order the book from Amazon. Here is the link https://www.amazon.com/dp/1737016605

Please let me know how your child liked this book. If it helps even a tiny bit in your child’s Bangla language learning, that would be my success. If you have any feedback, just reach me on any of Dear Prodigy’s social accounts or through email. I will keep improving the book in future editions. Thanks for believing in Dear Prodigy!

Check our Bengali Numbers Book with Rhymes and The Bengali Word Spelling Puzzle

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• Bilingual Myth Busting
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A common myth around bilingualism is that bilingual children will face academic problems when they start school. ​It is not fully correct. It depends on the age of the child and also the school setting. For example, for an older child who has been speaking their mother language since childhood and just got admitted to a school in a foreign country, it might be difficult to understand and process all the information in the class. This is not due to bilingualism. That child only knew one language, for example, Bengali, and now facing a completely different language, say English. It could be better served to get instruction in the language they know while they’re learning English.

However, for younger children, being bilingual actually helps in their academic careers. Research shows many academic advantages of bilingualism, including superior problem-solving, multitasking skills, and increased cognitive flexibility. Children who are being exposed to multiple languages from their childhood, are more comfortable in problem-solving, doing works that require multitasking. Kids thrive when they are in a bilingual academic setting — giving them a future advantage over monolingual children. Bilingualism is an asset in post-secondary applications and for career development.

Dear Prodigy has been continuously working to develop materials to help kids learn Bengali in a fun way. So far, we have designed a Bengali Alphabet Board Book that reflects Bengali culture, tradition, and heritage. You can check out the book reviews at Amazon [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1737016605] or on our Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/dearprodigy].

We also designed a beautiful Bengali Alphabet Poster for kids and also for adults. It can be put in the nursery room as well as in your living room. We will not shy away from saying it’s a piece of Bengali Art.

References

1. Marian V, Shook A, Schroeder SR. Bilingual Two-Way Immersion Programs Benefit Academic Achievement. Biling Res J. 2013;36(2):10.1080/15235882.2013.818075. doi:10.1080/15235882.2013.818075
2. Bialystok, Ellen. “Reshaping the mind: the benefits of bilingualism.” Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie experimentale vol. 65,4 (2011): 229-35. doi:10.1037/a0025406. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4341987/

Unfortunately, many people think that there is only room enough in a child’s brain for one language. However, if we look around at other countries, we can easily see that in many places, children grow up learning two, three, and sometimes more languages without any cost to their educational development. For example, in Switzerland, the home language may be French, Swiss-German, Italian, or Romansh, but most children learn one additional language very early, and by the time they graduate from secondary school, the majority of students are trilingual. Another good example is India.

Contrary to the idea that two languages confuse people, there is evidence that well-developed bilingualism actually enhances one’s “cognitive flexibility” — that is, bilingual people (including children) are better able to see things from two or more perspectives and to understand how other people think. (Hakuta, 1986). Bilinguals also have better auditory language skills (i.e., they can discriminate sounds of a language more finely) than monolinguals, and they mature earlier than monolinguals in terms of linguistic abstraction (i.e., ability to think and talk about language). (Albert and Obler, 1978, cited in Cummins, 1994).

References

1. Myths About Bilingualism in Individuals http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/540/bilingtl/myths.html

It is a common belief that exposing infants or toddlers to more than one language may cause delays in their speech or language development. The idea that two languages cause language delays in children has been a long-standing myth in the United States. However, research has dispelled this myth. Children are able to learn two languages at the same pace as other children who are learning only one language. [1]

At Dear Prodigy, we believe that our children who have their roots in Bangladesh or Kolkata but are living or growing in other countries should be given the chance of learning the sweetest language in the world, Bengali. Learning two languages from childhood has immense benefits. The kids can communicate with their parents, grandparents using the words, expressions that were passed to them from generation to generation. They can communicate more easily with relatives and extended family members living in Bangladesh/Kolkata. Not only these, learning multiple languages is also beneficial for their cognitive development. 

Dear Prodigy has been continuously working to develop materials to help kids learn Bengali in a fun way. So far, we have designed a Bengali Alphabet Board Book that reflects Bengali culture, tradition, and heritage. You can check out the book reviews at Amazon [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1737016605] or on our Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/dearprodigy].

We also designed a beautiful Bengali Alphabet Poster for kids and also for adults. It can be put in the nursery room as well as in your living room. We will not shy away from saying it’s a piece of Bengali Art.

Dear Prodigy has been continuously working to develop materials to help kids learn Bengali in a fun way. So far, we have designed a Bengali Alphabet Board Book that reflects Bengali culture, tradition, and heritage. You can check out the book reviews at Amazon [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1737016605] or on our Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/dearprodigy].

We also designed a beautiful Bengali Alphabet Poster for kids and also for adults. It can be put in the nursery room as well as in your living room. We will not shy away from saying it’s a piece of Bengali Art.

References

1. Marian V, Shook A, Schroeder SR. Bilingual Two-Way Immersion Programs Benefit Academic Achievement. Biling Res J. 2013;36(2):10.1080/15235882.2013.818075. doi:10.1080/15235882.2013.818075