Monster words

Give pupils an out-of-this-world introduction to synthetic phonics with Teach Your Monster to Read, a new educational game from the Usbourne Foundation charity.

What is it?

Horrible Histories’ Simon Farnaby narrates an adventure for pupils who are taking their monster on a journey to discover the shapes and sounds of letters of the alphabet.

Pupils create their own monster avatar and are immersed in a story after the monster’s spaceship crash lands on a mysterious planet. There the island king offers to fix the spaceship in exchange for finding letters.

Each letter is introduced one at a time, with a sound, shape and example word, such as “S as in sun”. Pupils practise letter recognition in computer games that include guiding sheep into the “S” pen and matching blocks that make the sound of the letter, when picked up, with the correct image on the screen.

How to play

The game is available free at www.teachyourmonstertoread.com.