Teach Your Monster to Read 4+

Really helpful for a struggling reader

I’m not generally a fan of app based learning, but have been COVID schooling a kinder student who struggles majorly with the rudiments of reading, like letter sounds and blending. This app has turned reading from a frustrating subject to his favorite subject. He only plays for 10-15 minutes a day, as a supplement to our usual phonics lessons, but he has improved in every area by leaps and bounds, easily reading through simple books that would’ve been a slow, frustrating process to get through before. He is very motivated by earning prizes for his monster, and loves to show me all the monster accessories, letter sounds, and now “trickies” (sight words) he’s collected. The game has just enough intuitive feedback that he can figure it out almost entirely on his own, but not so much that it encourages guessing.

My only complaint is that it does not automatically keep the player from progressing to harder material without mastery. As long as the child has done all the activities in level 1, even if he is still struggling and making a lot of errors in some places, the game will still move on to level 2.

Overall, a great way to get struggling readers motivated, and build confidence.

Effective and fun!

When my 4 year old daughter began using this game she loved it and didn't want to put it down. When she started she knew all the letters of her alphabet and many sounds. Within the first two months she was reading simple words (CVC). By the fourth month she was reading simple sentences. By 9 months she had completed finished all three levels of the game and could read proficiently at a 2nd grade level (about 550 lexile). I combined this game with Usborne Books & More's Very First Reading Set, which progresses using the same sounds/words as each part of the game.

The only downsides of this game are: as an American some of our pronunciations are different than how they are taught in the game (just a few words, but I enjoy hearing the accents of the narrator and characters), and single sounds/parts of the game cannot be focused on for further practice; the entire level has to be repeated. With my daughter I made up flash cards to practice her sounds and tricky words, but being able to select a letter/letter combination/word to repeat would be a nice feature. Overall, though, I give this game 5 stars for being FUN and very EFFECTIVE. I recommend this to everybody!

Developer Response ,

Hi Emp Zog, thanks for the review. We have also just made a new Practice Mode for you. Go to the home screen of the app and you can play with any letter sound on many of the different mini games - that way you can pick your favourite, or things that your player needs extra practice with. Thanks, Alex

Child wanted to play extra time

Just downloaded yesterday but my first grader loved it right away. One glitch for my ESL girl was figuring out how to get the “magnet machine tool”...do not know what it should be called ...to lift the blank sound blocks as visible clues are what she looks for first. Because she has had trouble hearing and recognizing initial letter sounds, the lack of a visual clue made her listen more closely which was good. After frustration about figuring out what action was needed, she happily went on to make progress. She was so excited, she wanted to use the app again today on her lunch break. Today her almost 5 year and sister whined for me to put it in my phone so she could do it also. If early excitement and learning continues, I will be happy. A couple of other apos that I have tried the younger sister on before have yielded a “no, I don’t want that!” response. So it clearly got both over the app avoidance test!