This phonics activity can be created using toys or things you find in the home or classroom. Write down the phonemes on a piece of paper that you’d like your child to practise. Ask them to put each object starting with the same phoneme into the corresponding basket.

Take a look on the Imagination Tree website for detailed way to set this activity up:

http://theimaginationtree.com/2014/03/phonics-activity-sorting-baskets.htm

We’ve been improving the Teach Your Monster to Read website to make it more useful for teachers and students. Here are some of the upgrades we’ve made this month:

Passwords:

You can now turn passwords off completely so children can log in using only their name. Just pop into your account settings to do this.
If you’re using auto-generated passwords, you can now choose to print out your passwords in capital or lowercase letters on password cards or in letters to parents.
Certificates, password cards and posters:

Password cards, certificates and posters can now be downloaded in bulk.
You can download posters and certificates for all your players, particular players or those in a group.
Progress reports:

Progress reports can now be downloaded for a whole group so you can compare the stats across a class.
Teacher to parent letter:

We have made sharing the game easier. Teachers can now easily edit a letter to parents. The letter contains login details for each of their students and can be printed in bulk.
We hope you find these new features useful – many of the changes have come out of conversations with our players.

Please get in touch if you have further suggestions, ideas or feedback about the website and game. We’d love to hear them!

The Teach Your Monster to Read team

Congratulations to Ashley Knight, the winner of the Teach Your Monster to Read Christmas colouring competition!

Ashley created the monster ‘Sprout’. Sprout wanted lots of books for Christmas – we think he’ll be happy with his book prize.

Here is Ashley with his winning picture.

The competition was judged by Teach Your Monster to Read illustrator Rich Wake,

Rich said:

“The winner for me is definitely Sprout by Ashley because I love the goggly eyes, pom-poms and glitter that have been added. Very creative and very Christmassy. Also the colouring in is really neat”.

Well done Ashley!

Here are some of the other fantastic entries into the competition. Thank you for sending through your monsters.

We’ve launched a fun and festive colouring in competition just in time for the holidays.

The winner will receive £50 of Usborne books.

How to enter.

Colour in this downloadable picture and email your entries to [email protected] by 31st December 2014.

Rich Wake, the wonderful illustrator for Teach Your Monster to Read will judge the entries. We’re looking for the most colourful designs!

For competition terms and conditions go to: www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/legals

The team at Teach Your Monster to Read would like to wish all our players (monsters) a very merry christmas!

This colourful phonics activity was found on Jenae’s www.icanteachmychild.com resource site.

This activity is about about sorting words that contain digraphs: /th/, /sh/and /ch/. It also includes decodable words like ‘that’ and ‘ship’ and tricky words like ‘the’ and ‘she’.

Find out how to crreate this phonics resource here at www.icanteachmychild.com

We’re asking teachers to join us for a 45 minute phone call where we’ll ask you a few questions about how you teach reading in school.

The research will help the Teach Your Monster to Read team to think about future developments and resources.

We’re giving £100 of Usborne books to those schools that can help us. If you are interested in joining this research project and have availability in January 2015 then email [email protected]

N.B. We’d also like to talk to teachers who do not currently use Teach Your Monster to Read in school so please pass on to any teachers who might like to help us with this research.

We’re proud to announce that Teach Your Monster to Read has reached 2 million game plays!

This is fantastic news for the Usborne Foundation because we know the game is helping more and more children learn to read.

Thank you to everyone who has played the game and we hope you’ll share this free online reading game with other parents and teachers.

Another simple, eye-catching phonics resource is the classroom phonics tree.

Thanks to Kirsten Baxter for the link on Pinterest:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/296956169150714382

Monster Tip: You can create a ‘Tricky Word’ tree for your classroom too.

Download our Teach Your Monster to Read colouring in sheet and create your own monster at home. Download the file by clicking this link: Monster Printable.

We’d love to see your homemade monsters! Share them on our Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Teach Your Monster to Read will be heading to London, Manchester and Cardiff with Save the Children to share and celebrate the magic of reading!

These free reading events will offer lots of fun activities for families; including storytelling, poetry and a treasure hunt hosted by some of the nation’s most famous faces, authors and illustrators.

There will be interactive sessions with Teach Your Monster to Read where children can play the game on iPads, win Usborne books and meet the monster himself!

We cannot wait to introduce the monster to our fans!

Join in the fun at a shopping centre near you:

Monday 27th and Tuesday 28th October
Westfield Stratford City
Thursday 30th October
Wales Millennium Centre
Saturday 1st November
Manchester Trafford Centre
To read more about Save the Children’s campaign to get all children reading well by the age of 11 go to: www.readongeton.org.uk