There are three Teach Your Monster to Read games to play, covering 2 years of the reading journey. Please read through their educational content to decide which game is right for your child.
Game 1: First Steps
For children just starting to learn letters and sounds.
First Steps gives children extra practice for whichever phonics scheme they’re using in school.
Practice for 31 letter-sound combinations:
s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k, ck, e, u, r, h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss, j, qu, v, w, x, y, z, zzBlending and segmenting practice with CVC words
The first 6 non-decodable (‘tricky”) words
Game 2: First Steps
For children who are confident with early letter-sound combinations and are starting to read sentences.
Note: If you’re not sure, try Game 1 first.
Fun With Words gives children extra practice for whichever phonics scheme they’re using in school:
Practice of new letter-sound combinations:
ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er
Lots of blending and segmenting practice with CVC, CVCC, CCV and CCVC words
Practice of non-decodable (‘tricky’) words:
he, she, the, to, we, me, be, was, no, go, my, you, they, her, all, are, said, so, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, do when, out, what
Reading and comprehension of sentences, from short ones such as “Get the cat” to longer ones such as “Can you get me an owl that is not green or red?”
Game 3: Champion Reader
For children who are confidently reading short sentences and know all of the basic letter-sound combinations.
Champion Reader is our most advanced game and children need to be fully prepared to play it.
They must:
be able to read and understand short sentences like: ‘Go and get me a black bee for my jar,' she said.
have secure knowledge of the following graphemes / phonemes:
s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k, ck, e, u, r, h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss, j, qu, v, w, x, y, z, zz, ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er
The game gives children extra practice for whichever phonics scheme they’re using in school:
Introduces alternative spellings of sounds (e.g. /ai/ as used in eight and they)
Introduces alternative pronunciations (e.g. i as pronounced in fin and find)
More non-decodable (‘tricky”) words
Lots of reading for meaning and comprehension - from sentences to magical little books
Teach Your Monster - Reading for Fun
Step into Reading for Fun, where over 70 FREE books are available to take out at Goldspear’s library, and no late delivery fees are required!
Here, we go beyond simply learning literacy, and enter the realm of reading for pleasure.
Much like a Kindle for kids, the app holds a range of stories for children to pick and choose from, however, entertaining tasks will need to be carried out to collect them!
Throughout the Reading for Fun village, a number of games and challenges will arise, and once completed, children will be gifted with brand new full books to add to their virtual bookshelf, straight from the Usborne collection, as well as a number of other publishers including Otter-Barry and Okido - even Teach Your Monster’s very own joke and poetry book!
Embark on a quest or whip up a meal; no one knows what the day will bring, but the reward is always worth it and every task has been designed for kids to learn literacy through reading for purpose.
Sadly, one in eight disadvantaged children in the UK don’t own a single book, but with Reading for Fun we hope to change that, and with a beautiful game world to explore, reluctant readers will look at reading in a whole new light.