In Teach Your Monster to Read, kids can create a monster and take it on an adventure through a magical world while learning to read. The game starts at the most basic building blocks of reading, such as letter recognition and letter-sound matching and progresses all the way to reading full sentences. Teach Your Monster to Read was developed to complement in-class synthetic phonics programs and can be used by learners in the classroom or independently at home. The website also includes an interactive educator’s toolkit with additional games, classroom activities, and resources. The web version is free to use through a grant by The Usborne Foundation, but there is also an app version for purchase.

Website: https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/

What Users Love About the App

“First of all. Thank you so much for sharing your app for free (for a limited time) you are awesome, just let me tell you, that you are helping children that are struggling reading, what an amazing way to support our children to read.”

“Wonderful app! I have 5 kids and homeschool. Always looking for fun ways to incorporate learning with game time. They love it! My 6, 8 and 10 year old enjoy it. 11 year old said it’s a bit lower level for her but she is already a full reader.”

“Fantastic. Getting my 5 year old to practice reading is often a trial for everyone involved, but he loves this. We’ve moved onto playing the “Reading for Fun” game on the website, and he loves collecting books to read!”

“My toddler absolutely LOVES this! It’s easy to use and a ton of fun! She also loves to sing along with the silly songs. Makes learning to read FUN! Design your own monster, teach it to read and collect different prizes to dress your monster up!”

“This game works. My son has been playing it for a few months and he starting to catch on to sound out and recognize words. I’ve seen him read out sentences and watching him do so puts a smile on my face. It’s a wonderful game.”

What Users Dislike About the App

“Useless. Too easy for kids to cheat and “achieve” in the game by just mashing enough buttons. My two kids got through levels so fast and when I sat down with them to see how they were getting on they couldn’t even start to guess at what words they were supposed to be reading, but the game lets them move forward too easily and helps too much.”

“I’ve sent an email about my problem to support, but I didn’t get answer. The sound sometimes stops while playing and it is not possible to know what to do next.”

“Quite a boring game for my 6 year old. Don’t know how to get to the right level for her. The words used in the game are so simple. The hight speed game is too fast. Need to be able to adjust the speed. So far quite disappointed by the purchase.”

“Don’t bother. If you get something wrong it doesn’t explain anything or try to teach anything. No learning moments. Its just repeats the command over and over and over again. Also, it is phonics with a British accent. Keep that in mind. “letter” is pronounced “letta”.”