Teach Your Monster to Read Overview
Take your monster on a learn-to-read adventure with the BAFTA-nominated Teach Your Monster to Read. Created in collaboration with leading academics from Roehampton University and funded by The Usborne Foundation, every aspect of our phonics and reading game has been carefully crafted to support your child.
Kids love making their own monster and teaching it to read. They learn through play, taking a magical journey over three extensive games – meeting a host of colourful characters along the way – and improving their reading skills as they progress.
Designed in collaboration with literacy and game design experts, Teach Your Monster to Read:
• Complements synthetic phonics programmes used in schools.
• Covers the first two years of learning to read, from matching letters and sounds to enjoying books.
• Develops a secure knowledge of graphemes and phonemes and an understanding of non-decodable (‘tricky’) words.
• Aids learning of letter-sound combinations, blending and segmenting.
Teach Your Monster to Read is approved by teachers and loved by parents. They tell us it’s the perfect tool for supporting their students, whether in the classroom or at home.
How does Teach Your Monster to Read work?
Teach Your Monster to Read has three games; First Steps, Fun With Words and Champion Reader. Each game is packed full of interactive and fun minigames and challenges that help children learn to read.
First Steps helps kids with the initial stages of learning to read. The game develops children’s speed and accuracy of grapheme (letter) recognition through a series of adaptive mini games where children match letters and sounds. Set in a world with eight islands, children will be matching phonemes to graphemes in order to complete each island and move on to the next.
Fun With Words continues where First Steps left off and introduces new graphemes and phonemes. There’s plenty of blending and segmenting, ‘tricky’ sight words and reading and comprehension of short sentences. Set in a world of 7 villages, each village presents different skills for children to learn.
Champion Reader introduces loads of fun reading and comprehension activities. Children love teaching their monster to read, and they will be following instructions to navigate through the games and pick up extra special rewards. Expanding on everything children learn from the first two games, Champion Reader contains 47 planets (levels) to explore, new blending and segmenting mini games and plenty of extra rewards for children to enjoy.
Which literacy skills does Teach Your Monster to Read cover?
Teach Your Monster to Read comprises of three extensive games and covers the first two years of the reading journey. The games provide many hours of interactive learning of key reading skills. These skills are based on the Systematic Synthetic Phonics system used in UK schools and they help children understand the relationship between letters and sounds.
In the English language, letters can represent more than one sound and a single sound can be represented in more than one way. This can make it a challenging and complex language in which to learn to read. In Teach Your Monster to Read, we set out to make this both supportive and fun! The skills our three games cover include:
Grapheme recognition
Developing children’s speed and accuracy of recognising graphemes (letters or groups of letters that represent different sounds (phonemes).
Blending
Building children’s ability to put sounds together in order to read words.
Segmenting
Learning how to break up words into their constituent sounds.
Non-decodable ‘tricky’ words
Getting to know words that can’t be phonetically sounded out and which don’t follow the rules of phonics, such as ‘give’, ‘called’ and ‘water’. These are also called sight words or non-phonetic words.
Reading and comprehension
Learning to read short sentences, captions and understand their meaning.
Alternative grapheme pronunciations
Learning the alternative pronunciations of known graphemes.
Alternative spelling of sounds
For example /ai/ as used in eight and they.
Reading for pleasure
Getting to know and love reading short sentences and small books!
Learn about our mini games
Within the main Teach Your Monster to Read adventure and our Practice Mode, our mini games allow kids to learn all the key reading skills in fun, varied and engaging ways.
Find out more about what skills each of our games target on our mini games page.
What does each stage of Teach Your Monster to Read cover?
First steps
Stage 1, for children just starting to learn letters and sounds. First Steps gives children a great way to enjoy learning whichever phonics scheme they’re using in school.
• Play with 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, zz
• Blending and segmenting practice with CVC words
• The first 6 non-decodable (‘tricky”) words
Fun with Words
Stage 2, for children who are confident with early letter-sound combinations and are starting to read sentences.
NB: If you’re not sure, try stage 1 first.
Fun With Words is a superb way for children to consolidate their learning on whichever phonics scheme they’re using in school:
• Play with 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 with CVC, CVCC, CCV and CCVC words
• Gain confidence with 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?”
Champion Reader
Stage 3, for children who are able to read short sentences and are confident with most letter-sounds.
Important: Champion Reader is the most advanced of the three Teach Your Monster to Read games and players should be experienced with Stages 1 and 2 before starting.
Children should:
• 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 support for whichever phonics scheme they’re using in school. Here’s what Champion Reader offers:
• 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
How does Teach Your Monster to Read help children?
Teach Your Monster to Read has already helped over 50 million children grow their confidence and learn to read! Here’s how…
Our literacy games are adaptive! Graphemes that a child is struggling with will be repeated in the mini games more often, allowing for personalised learning.
From magical villages to outer space, children can enjoy over 15 hours of unique, engaging gameplay and content dedicated to learning to read.
The game levels are designed to fit neatly into school lessons or home play sessions to compliment your phonics programme.
Top tip! We recommend children play regular, short sessions over time, to consolidate their learning alongside their school phonics programme.
Practice Mode allows children to spend time on specific letter sounds. This mode is a great way for students to have a try with graphemes and phonemes that they’re learning in class!
Combining outstanding artwork and the highest quality game design, our games are easy to use, appealing and very engaging.
Teach Your Monster to Read is 100% FREE on computers!
All our games are completely FREE to play on computers for everybody via our website!
As a not-for-profit, this is made possible through the support of the Usborne Foundation and when you purchase one of our apps. Everything we receive goes back into developing and improving our games, supporting parents and teachers, and helping more children learn through play.
How to get started
1. Choose your account type.
2. Confirm your email.
3. That’s it! You can now play all our fabulous educational games!
We recommend creating a ‘test’ player so you can try the games for yourself first. For more help, check out our online tutorials and player guides.
Meet the team
Dr Angela Colvert
Educational Consultant
Whilst collaborating on Teach Your Monster to Read, Angela was a senior lecturer in English Education at Roehampton University and is our Teach Your Monster resident literacy advisor. With us since 2011, Angela is now a lecturer in Education, and Deputy Director of Innovation at University of Sheffield, with particular expertise in co-designing digital games to support learning (with teachers, children, game-creators and artists).
Alison Kelly
Educational Consultant
Alison Kelly was a principal lecturer at Roehampton University and, working with Angela, was jointly responsible for making sure our literacy products are underpinned by current evidence-based academic research and informed by sound pedagogical principles. Alison was also a consultant for the Usborne Reading Programme.
Popleaf
Game Designers and Developers
Jonathan Skuse and Berbank Green of Popleaf are the game developers and designers behind both Teach Your Monster to Read and Reading for Fun. Their creative vision and technical expertise have been instrumental in shaping our educational games. With over two decades of digital media experience, Matt specialises in the children’s and educational sectors and has brought this to the game. He previously worked on the BAFTA winning Zingzillas, Sesame Street, Danger Mouse, CBeebies and many more games.
Rich Wake
Artist
Rich Wake is the talented artist behind the vibrant and engaging visuals in Teach Your Monster to Read and Reading for Fun. He has also contributed his creative expertise to a range of popular animated shows on Cartoon Network.
Simon Farnaby
Voice actor
Simon Farnaby is an accomplished actor, writer, and comedian, best known for his work on Horrible Histories and Paddington. Simon is also a key member of the Ghosts ensemble, a popular British sitcom. Simon’s distinctive voice and comedic talents bring life and charm to Teach Your Monster to Read.
Alex Goss
Product Manager
Alex has led Teach Your Monster to Read alongside other popular games like Reading for Fun and Adventurous Eating. He also works on marketing and growth, helping us reach over 500 million plays worldwide. With a wealth of experience launching games at Teach Your Monster, Alex is passionate about helping kids learn through play.
