Teach Your Monster To Read: First Steps

What is it

Teach Your Monster To read app is a phonic based reading game which helps children recognise sounds.  Children have to create their own monster and take it on an adventure through magical and mysterious places, meet the mysterious Island Kings and collect rewards as their monster learns the first steps of reading.  The mini games helps the children’s recognition of all 31 letter sounds.

Tested on an iPad

What our experts think

This is a good app for encouraging children to develop and practise their phonological awareness. The app would be particularly useful for encouraging boys, who are often reluctant readers, to read.
The way in which children are encouraged to listen and say a sound and recognise how it is written ensures that they are linking the sounds they hear to how it actually looks on a page.
The mini games are a good addition to the app as they introduce key sounds.

It would be even better if...

We would like to have seen a wider range of activities – although children do need reinforcement, they can become bored repeating the same activity. The app also needed clearer instructions at the start of each activity