For grown-ups
How Vietnamese children learn to read
In Vietnam, children learn to read by đánh vần: an opening sound joins a rhyme, then a tone mark changes the word. Said aloud, it goes “bờ – a – ba – huyền – bà”. VầnTots follows that classroom routine, in the order teachers use.
The three activities
- Ghép vần (join). Tap a sound, then a rhyme, and hear it spelled aloud. Pairs that Vietnamese writes differently (c or g before e, ê, i) are greyed out, so your child never sees a misspelling.
- Dấu thanh (tones). The same syllable with each of the six tones, each with a drawn line showing how the voice moves.
- Tìm chữ (find the word). A picture word is built in three steps: the opening sound, the rhyme, then the tone.
The six tones
| Mark | On “ma” | How it sounds |
|---|---|---|
| không dấu | ma | level, mid |
| huyền | mà | low, falling gently |
| sắc | má | high, rising |
| hỏi | mả | dips, then rises |
| ngã | mã | rises with a break in the middle |
| nặng | mạ | low, short and heavy |
The words
cá, gà, bò, bé, mẹ, bà, lá, nhà, xe, dê, đá, rổ, thỏ, chó, hổ, nho, bơ, cú, lê.
Each one is a single syllable with no final consonant, so what your child builds is exactly the sound, the rhyme and the tone.
Honest notes
VầnTots is a first step with sounds and tones, not a full reading course. There is no score and no reading level, and it does not listen to your child. The Vietnamese was written by our team, not machine-translated, and is waiting for review by native-speaking teachers. The voice is your device's Vietnamese voice; if there is none, a note appears and you can read aloud yourself.
Privacy
No account. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.